14 ms·

Management things I learned at Imgur

brobdingnagian 11y ago
Right off the bat you tip your hand: you are selecting against people who are depressed. Rather than try to help them, you'd rather let them wallow in misery, fail, become unemployed, schizophrenic and eventually die homeless.
- cbd1984 11y ago
  Depression causes schizophrenia?
  - brobdingnagian 11y ago
    I wouldn't say causes - but the statistics speak volumes. A quarter of homeless people are schizophrenic.
    - minimaxir 11y ago
      Correlation does not imply causation.
      - brobdingnagian 11y ago
        Have enough heart to acknowledge what's going on in front of you.
    - jordigh 11y ago
      That's because the schizophrenics were basically evicted from the psychiatric hospitals. With nowhere to go and no one to care for them, they ended up homeless. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_and_mental_health#Deinstitutionalization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_and_mental_health... Also, how did you manage to relate this at all to TFA?
      - brobdingnagian 11y ago
        That accounts for some of the homeless schizophrenics. "Also, how did you manage to relate this at all to TFA?" Just what exactly do you think the real world implications of this attitude / policy are more generally? "It’s terribly difficult to manage unmotivated people. Make your job easier and don’t." He is saying: don't try to manage them. Fire them.
      - DanBC 11y ago
        You see higher rates of schizophrenia amoung homeless people in countries that have free health care and enough in-patient mental health beds. EG England, where mental health care is generally okay.
    - DanBC 11y ago
      Depression and psychotic illnesses are very different. You probably have your causal link backwards: mental illness creates homelessness and vulnerably housed situations. The homelessness and vulnerably housed situations don't help people with a psychotic illness (contributing to medication non-compliance); and there is probably some situational depression there too. But it's probably wrong to say that homelessness cuses schizophrenia.
- pen2l 11y ago
  That's horribly off-topic, but I'll continue being horribly off-topic, only because I had a very strong realization about this today. My boss has been bugging me to get stuff done since there are some crazy deadlines coming up for us. I realized a few days ago that were it not for the craziness at work, I would be very lonely... I have nothing to do. And it's precisely when I have nothing to do that I start having negative or suicidal thoughts. So having a job really is a blessing for me, it gives me something to keep my mind preoccupied, and gives me an easy opportunity to socialize (walking up to someone and starting a conversation with someone is a lot easier.. when... well, you have to, because work requires that you have to :)).
  - brobdingnagian 11y ago
    Thanks for sharing. I don't think it's off topic. "It’s terribly difficult to manage unmotivated people. Make your job easier and don’t." It's just a really really mean thing to say, especially coming from someone who is a manager / mentor.
    - pen2l 11y ago
      I agree that's a shitty thing. Also, sadly, it is a norm to think in this bleakly capitalistic way. By and large, you will not see normal people viewing the providing job/no job thing as something moral.
    - jordigh 11y ago
      I understand trying to be humane to everyone, but you cannot just decide to not fire anyone, ever. If someone does not want to be at a job, it is not an act of charity to keep them at that job. If they really do not want to be there, they can cause a lot more grief to themselves or others. It's cruel to be kind. You're not Schindler. Firing people is not a death sentence. If you fear for their mental health, fire them and direct them to services that can help. Hell, companies even do this routinely in a fashion: it's called outplacement.
      - smacktoward 11y ago
- oh_sigh 11y ago
  Not to be heartless, but why would it be a businesses concern if someone was depressed or not?
  - brobdingnagian 11y ago
    Let's do a reductio-style thought experiment: what if everyone was depressed? That's obviously a business concern. The standard argument for socialism follows from the same reductio: what if everyone was happy? That would be GREAT for business.
    - adventured 11y ago
      The second one is not true. Utopia of happiness would result in vast stagnation. Agitation, annoyance, something needing fixed, imperfection, desire for more / self-improvement, etc. is a critical root of invention and creativity. Ideally not everyone is perfectly happy all at the same time. And it should be noted that is not the same as saying that everyone should never be happy. Rather, that it's incredibly valuable to have dissatisfied people in society - they're often the ones that break with the status quo and push humanity forward.
    - Sideloader 11y ago
      You are an idiot and I am so fucking glad I never have to work under assholes like you ever again. Oh, nice straw man you've built. Because treating employees like human beings = slippery slope to socialism. The level of fail in American management culture boggles the mind. These sad fools don't get that employee productivity and, thus, the company's earnings, would improve if they treated people with basic respect. An employee who actually wants to be at work is much more productive than the person who dreads coming to work every day. A lot of managers are assholes just because they can be and they should be fired on sight because their incompetence drags the entire team down and saddles the company with a shitty reputation. A miserable demotivated workforce plus a bad reputation in the industry (all of which could easily have been avoided) is like regularly shovelling bundles of $100 bills into the basement incinerator. Sadly, many companies shovel many bundles into many fires all over the nation and then promote the lead shoveller so he can start burning $1000 bundles.
jqm 11y ago
I thought this was a good article. I believe most people who are worth having want to be part of something bigger themselves, want to contribute to the world and are willing to sacrifice a bit to do so. These are the people to identify and reward and it is always frustrating when this doesn't happen. Per brobdingnagian's comment... everyone has bad days on occasion. A good manager can work around this. But a workplace is about work. Not therapy.
- brobdingnagian 11y ago
  That's really a false dichotomy. Ideally you aren't a nice person outside of work and a jerk at work. You are just a nice person. And if you see someone struggling, you don't fire them: you help them. Just like most of the best practices here haven't been tied to success, it's also true that helping people going through a hard time hasn't been tied to failure. The right thing to do is really obvious here. Help them.
  - technofiend 11y ago
    Well you say that but I work at a very high pressure job that requires me to be far harsher towards employees than friends. I test as ENTP at work and INTJ at home just because success at work requires a different mindset. I don't like it, but that's how it is.
    - brobdingnagian 11y ago
      "I don't like it, but that's how it is." No arguing with that. In the long run, we can hopefully select against business practices that have these kinds of human costs.
    - wtvanhest 11y ago
      The last company I worked for was extremely high pressure, but I never encountered anyone who was harsh. They would be fired. It just isn't necessary. Also, ENTP & INTJ all that stuff is proven to be bunk with no statistical evidence that it predicts anything.
kzhahou 11y ago
When did it become a Universal Truth that good management requires regular scheduled 1-1s (weekly or biweekly at most)? Clearly managers should meet frequently and in depth with people on the team, but the "regular 1-on-1" thing is mantra, and I'm not sure there's research/evidence to support its efficacy. People never look forward to them. You gotta remember everything you did that week so you can report on it (even when told the 1-1 isn't meant for status reports... it kinda always is). You gotta think of some issue to bring up to manager's attention. It interrupts your whole day. Your manager didn't yet help you on your problem from last week -- now they want to listen thoughtfully to problems this week? From the manager's POV: You've been keeping up with the team members all week, helping out and checking in every day... now you're gonna lose one or two days with back-to-back 1-1s which leave your voice hoarse. They need a few more days to finish out whatever you discussed last week... should you cancel the 1-1 and sync up on the next week (and lose the 1-1 tempo), or have a "no-diff" meeting that you both know you coulda skipped?
- Blackthorn 11y ago
  > People never look forward to them. I'm sorry, but...speak for yourself. I have nothing but respect for my manager and he respects me as well. It's there so if I have some persistent problem or concern with our project's direction, they can help. And, yes, it does provide the opportunity for you to market yourself and what you've done. Marketing is important.
  - PurplePanda 11y ago
    If I had some persistent problem or concern I would just bring it up, I wouldn't wait for some scheduled meeting. I guess some managers might not be so easily available.
    - balls187 11y ago
      Or some employees don't feel comfortable bringing it up.
    - bikesandcode 11y ago
lohengramm 11y ago
"It’s terribly difficult to manage unmotivated people. Make your job easier and don’t." And where is the challenge if everyone is highly motivated and easy to manage? Then you can just leave the programmers alone. They don't need management in this case.
- bitmage 11y ago
  There's another critical role in many organizations for your manager; defending your team against other managers. Otherwise your highly-motivated group will become less so as they are blamed for failures beyond their control, have their schedules randomly changed for 'urgent' work, etc.
- mosquito242 11y ago
  management at that point becomes providing direction and helping focus priorities and helping your programmers be their best.
- wcrichton 11y ago
  Just because people are highly motivated doesn't mean they're intrinsically organized. You can leave the programmers alone, but you still need someone to decide what they're working on and how to best allocate resources. A manager ensures a team stays coordinated.
  - nbm 11y ago
    I've found that groups of individual contributors are actually very good on deciding what is important, what they should work on and when, and how to work together to get things done. Managers can provide a useful role in setting the scene, reminding what the goals of the organisation, the department, and so forth are, and how this connects with what the team is doing. They are perhaps most useful in working with individuals who aren't working well as part of the team at the moment - giving them feedback, mentorship, building bridges, connecting them with people, training, and so forth. In my opinion, managers hurt more than not if they override the self-organisation of teams, and this most hurts when you need two teams to work together - and one of the managers has (explicitly, perhaps) made it clear that doing things "off the plan" is not appreciated.
danieltillett 11y ago
Number 6 was the hardest for me to learn - I always wanted to give people another chance to change, but they never did. It is always hard to fire someone, but once you have reached the decision to fire do it as soon as possible.
nbm 11y ago
If one considers the primary purpose of managers to be to improve the performance of those that report to them, then this list starts poorly. It _is_ terribly difficult to manage unmotivated people, but most people only end up unmotivated because of poor management. And it's usually cheaper and ultimately better to motivate a proved achiever who has lower motivation than to find a replacement.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  The most unmotivated people I have ever had the displeasure of having to manage were people I had no ability to fire or promote. There is basically nothing you can do yet higher management still holds you responsible for the lack of results.
  - skeeterbug 11y ago
    If you can't fire or promote them are you really their manager?
    - balls187 11y ago
      Even if you are in an "At-Will" employment state, it's not as simple to fire an employee. You have to have HR involved, and prepare enough documentation to satisfy the need to terminate someone. In smaller orgs with no HR, it's probably easier, but larger companies have a specific process. Though to your point, I would not consider myself someones manager unless I had the option to hire, fire, or promote them.
    - yeukhon 11y ago
      Union, tenure, or simply no from upper management. Sometimes people deliver the result but they may behave in a way that shows they are not motivated. That is a hard thing to use to fire someone.
      - danieltillett 11y ago
        Exactly. My experience is from within the university system where nobody can be fired for non-performance. You get people that are just waiting to retire and don't care about anyone other than themselves.
codinghorror 11y ago
Hmm. Sam was only at Imgur for less than a year. That's a lot of management lessons for a limited period of time...
- balls187 11y ago
  Maybe he was a quick study?
- taw-snark0 11y ago
  He writes well, but is only 2 years out of college (Stanford '13). Learning that (and noticing how he obfuscated it on his LinkedIn) made me take this piece with an even larger grain of salt than I would normally have.
  - nathankleyn 11y ago
    He probably obfuscated that fact so people wouldn't judge him just by his age; it would seem based on some of the comments in this thread that he was right to do so. Some of the best lessons in life can come from those who haven't been tainted by long stints doing the very thing they're commenting on.
    - taw-snark0 11y ago
      Managing teams should be about the long term. Any understanding this guy has of the long-term effects of his management style is necessarily second-hand. It's not about age, but experience (and honestly representing yourself in the world). N.B. I'm not saying he shouldn't write, or that he doesn't have valuable insights to offer, just that the author's experience is fair ground for discussion.
- BinaryIdiot 11y ago
  You'd be surprised with how many lessons you can take away from even a short period of taking a new position. For instance I had done very limited management in my past. When a new project came up the company I worked at they had made me lead the project which essentially meant developer + manager. This employer also had the habit of under staffing teams while pushing very aggressive timelines. This lead me to try to manage a team of 6 while also coding around the clock for several months. When it came to review time I was a mess; I hadn't paid enough attention to my team, I was constantly scrambling for tasks, trying to find ways to help where necessary, etc. It was an incredible trial-by-fire. When it came to my second stint at the same position for a new project I was ready. I gave constant feedback in real-time, I was able to keep on top of tasks, my meetings were more streamlined and I was able to estimate things far better; I did a 180 and became much more effective.
overgard 11y ago
I definitely agree with the importance of feedback. I think companies sometimes tend to be too polite. (Don't get me wrong -- you don't want rudeness, but directness is valuable). There's nothing more frustrating than spending a lot of time on a project and having no idea if you're creating value, or walking down a rabbit hole that is not useful.
foopants 11y ago
Imgur censors images that point out the dangers of obesity, and promotes images that encourage obesity. Use slimgur instead.
balls187 11y ago
Good list, but what this hits on is managing down, and not much on how to manage up, or manage across. In my experience, I've found managing a team fairly easy--I just think about all the things my great managers did, and try to emulate them. Managing up, and managing other teams however, has been a real learning experience.
mordrax 11y ago
"It’s terribly difficult to manage unmotivated people. Make your job easier and don’t." I want to add to this by saying, it's terribly difficult to keep yourself motivated in a team with unmotivated people. I left my last job because all the team cared about was money, job security and doing their 9-5. At my current place, we could fire half the staff and the company wouldn't miss a beat. Sadly, there is no management, leadership or clear direction. We are self managed and so it's very easy to spot the handful of proactive staff because they usually end up picking up all the tasks which eventually causes burnouts and reduced motivation etc... I've tried to motivate my team mates but how do you motivate someone who's comfortable and secure in their 9-5 and don't really care to achieve any more than mediocre? Nobody gets fired and everyone's on pretty good pay for the job they do. So I really do agree with this point. Find people who are not satisfied with the status quo. You can't change everyone, in fact, you can't change anyone. All a manager can do is hope to keep these people accountable if they do not hold themselves responsible.
- ryandrake 11y ago
  I would imagine that people motivated mainly by money are among the easiest to manage. There's no guesswork there. Give them clear, measurable performance goals, with dollar signs attached to each one. Done. In my view, money also is a good fallback motivation, if you can't figure out exactly what it is that someone wants out of his job, or you can't provide it. Truly, I've probably had only one job in my life where I honestly thought "I wouldn't stay here NO MATTER WHAT they pay me!"
  - erikb 11y ago
    I'd say I'm not a money oriented person. E.g., looking at the income statistics of my city I think that my chances are >50% if I find any other job. But I think what you say would highly motivate me anyway. People like numbers and making numbers bigger. That's why people feel bad if they don't get enough Facebook likes. So if you give people clear numbers and a path to increase the numbers they will be motivated to do it, even if they don't care what the numbers stand for.
  - cosmolev 11y ago
caseyf7 11y ago
Didn't Imgur have a total of 13 people last year?
- mburst 11y ago
  Yea we've grown like crazy over the past year. We're now up to around 55 people.
  - nbm 11y ago
    My experience is that interesting things happen to organisations at size 20-30 (basically when the CEO and/or COO can no longer keep tabs on nearly everything themselves, no longer can maintain some relationship with all staff), and also when there are more than 33% of people with <6 months at the company. Hope this wasn't as painful as some of my experiences with just single dosages of these at a time.
spotman 11y ago
I like a lot of these very much and agree. Thanks for posting.
zongitsrinzler 11y ago
These 21 points make Imgur seem like an over-managed hell pit to work at.
- prawn 11y ago
  I think that if good management were following these rules, you wouldn't even know it was happening. It'd be more like guiding and less like controlling.
mandeepj 11y ago
> Give feedback frequently and directly. As a manager, it’s easier to wait and then hedge critical feedback in soft wrappers, but that’s selfish. I’d try to give feedback as soon as I could grab a conference room with the person, and not wait until the formal 1:1 days later. I really wish if everyone could think like this. What is the point in giving feedback after 6 or 12 months during appraisal. That is also done as part of formality.
mathattack 11y ago
Many gems are in here. - If you can’t fire friends, don’t hire them. - Finally, firing for bad performance is easier than having to fire good people because you’ve run out of money, so fire the bad people before you have to fire the good people too. - The best way to avoid politics isn’t to ignore politics, but to spend your time on it. I'm interested in the backstory of the author too.
ryandrake 11y ago
> Define clear merit-based systems, which reduces confusion about what your team members need to do be recognized. This is a great one, I wish more companies/managers did this. It's terrible when your company's advancement policy is "if your manager like you, you get promoted". It's demotivating when your bonus is based on someone's subjective feeling about how good a job you're doing, or some ridiculous self-assessment essay. Give me clear, measurable goals, and a clear, scheduled (on the calendar) performance review. Ship Product A or complete features B and C on time and your next raise will be X. Ship it on time and under budget and your bonus will be Y. Otherwise, Z% cost of living increase only.
- skrebbel 11y ago
  Nearly everything i care about in a great programmer is way less well measurable than "ship feature X on time". I like your sentiment but I think real good work (for any office job, really) is very hard to measure.
- cactusface 11y ago
  What if all your time is spent cleaning up after the cowboys? Or talking to the other team members about the problems they are stuck working on? A mission critical 2-line bugfix can take months. There aren't objective measures of performance. Any metric you come up with, employees will find a way to thwart it. Shipping a product on time? Easy. Just don't mention the bugs. Surely you don't believe it's possible to create bug-free software, do you? When all the team members have their performance tied to them, they'll all collude to game metrics. Don't even get me started on SLOC. Speaking from experience here, sorry if it's too cynical / bitter.
  - ryandrake 11y ago
    Picking good metrics that are not game-able is not easy, but as long as they are truly aligned with the company goals, it's kind of OK for people to optimize for them. You get the behavior that you measure. From the point of view of an employee, anything is better than "your compensation depends on the subjective assessment of your manager". Talk about a system that can be gamed!
known 11y ago
Management inversely proportional to adversity & diversity
AriaMinaei 11y ago
>> Define success clearly and don’t flip-flop on the definition without new information. Does anyone have an example for this?
datashovel 11y ago
The tone of the list seemed to draw a line between the "manager" and the "managed". Personally I think the best way to manage a team is to draw a line between the "team" (including management) and the "objectives". The seemingly tough part with doing things this way is to be able to draw a line between individuals and the rest of the team if someone isn't holding up their weight. It sounds tough, but I think it doesn't have to be as tough as it sounds. If people are given enough independence and individual responsibilities, but in a collaborative setting, it will become obvious to the entire team when individuals are not carrying their weight. Keep in mind that once a person becomes a member of your team you're in it for the long haul. Every once in a while a team needs to rally to achieve objectives, since it's almost impossible to give perfectly equal distribution of work in a project. Every once in a while individuals need to be propped up by the rest of the team if they're having difficulties with their individual responsibilities. It should only become a problem when the same individuals, over the course of an extended period of time, fail to meet their objectives. And even then if the company is large enough they should be given an opportunity to move laterally within the company to move to another team. If individuals fail regularly within multiple teams at that point it becomes obvious they may need to be let go. With all that said, different projects / companies have different budgets and so they may need to cut corners. That's why it's important to be careful to select people you are in it for the long haul with, and are willing to put the time and energy into that person as an investment for the betterment of the company. Sudden turnover is one of the worst things for morale in any company. Avoid it at just about any cost, except in extraordinary circumstances.
lifeisstillgood 11y ago
> People need to feel like they’ve been listened to, not to make the final call. Take the time to listen (you might be wrong), make a decision and then explain the decision. Don’t offer commentary on others’ decisions until you understand why the decisions were made. very true
Fede_V 11y ago
I wanted to focus on one thing which I really liked in that list. The author stresses the need to explain the rationale for decisions (aka, why we are going to focus on x, instead of y) rather than presenting all decisions as unquestionable and infallible edicts from god. This doesn't mean that every employee will agree with every decision taken from management - but hearing the whys, and understanding the debate that went into taking a decision helps a lot in getting buy in and getting people to go that extra mile.
jaimebuelta 11y ago
The first point is very important. Motivate someone is quite complicated, but demotivate is extremely easy. Unfortunately, we people are weird and complex, and sometimes random stupid things can make a huge deal in terms os motivation. When I think back on the things that had really infuriated me about works and managers, they are typically small, avoidable things; not big ones... PD: Reading some comments on the thread, I understand this as "do not demotivate people" more than "fire unmotivated people"
nowprovision 11y ago
This is kind of sad to read, and certainly not a manager Id like to work with, is this even a company that is profitable? Didnt someone buy this for a stupid amount years ago?. Back on subject, an unmotivated employee is usually a symptom a problem with the company or culture, especially if he/she is an experienced hire that has many years of real world experience, why were they motivated/productive before and not now?. Perhaps the company is blind that they have a problem? Perhaps they tick many boxes on Stackoverflow check list and many employees are HN followers so it can't be a culture problem? Just food for thought..
nowprovision 11y ago
This is kind of sad to read, and certainly not a manager Id like to work with, is this even a company that is profitable? Didnt someone buy this for a stupid amount years ago?. Back on subject, an unmotivated employee is usually a symptom a problem with the company or culture, especially if he/she is an experienced hire that has many years of real world experience, why were they motivated/productive before and not now?. Perhaps the company is blind that they have a problem? Perhaps they tick many boxes on Stackoverflow check list and many employees are HN followers so I can't be a culture problem? Just food for thought..
song 11y ago
"Fire quickly. If you don’t fire bad performers fast, you’re at risk of losing your good performers. Don’t underestimate the effect bad performers have on good performers. Your team will likely move faster even with fewer bodies." and "It’s terribly difficult to manage unmotivated people. Make your job easier and don’t." are very very important. In the previous company I created, I had to keep an incompetent and lazy employee to appease my cofounder because he was friend with him. There's nothing worse for team motivation than having an incompetent and lazy untouchable employee... Never ever do that. Oh and if you ever find yourself with a cofounder who wants to keep an employee because he is his friend regardless of performance, treat that as a huge red flag...
- fallat 11y ago
  Ok, the example you gave is fine. But there is something that scares me a little. Could a "bad performer" mean someone who just can't output as much as everyone else, even though they are trying as hard as possible? What if they exhibit strong self-motivation to learn, but have a difficult time implementing something that would otherwise be easy for someone else?... It scares me as a (well, I consider myself, but I've been developing software for 5+ years...) junior software developer that I might be compared to seniors or "prodigy" developers. The only thing I can do is keep pushing my limits and reach those levels, and I'm lucky to be one of those self-motivated people. But the others...it sounds hopeless.
  - song 11y ago
    In my experience, determination and perseverance trumps raw talent. If you really push yourself to the limit and are passionate enough about what you're doing to try to improve yourself, you're going to be a better asset in the long term for a team compared to someone who understand things easily but doesn't really try to improve himself unless he has to. Even in term of team morale, someone who tries hard and pushes himself to the limit is motivating. So I wouldn't worry too much about it (plus you might just have imposter syndrome and discount what you really know ;-))
    - fallat 11y ago
Giorgi 11y ago
That was surprisingly on topic and good.
mokash 11y ago
Enjoying your work and working 9 to 5 on-the-dot aren't mutually exclusive.
thejay 11y ago
Great discussions. Having had some startup experience myself I would add that people have drastically different levels of understanding and common sense, so they will interpret what they see and read differently. There is no shortage of books/blogs on management or leadership or product management, but things don't really change and the same mistakes are being made every single day in startups.
meesterdude 11y ago
This was not only a good post, but the presentation was straight to the point: no fluff, all meat. I really appreciate that, and wish more went that route.
kenko 11y ago
"It’s terribly difficult to manage unmotivated people. Make your job easier and don’t. Different people need different kinds of management. Be adaptable to figure out what drives each person’s best performance." This juxtaposition is deliberate irony, right?

Right off the bat you tip your hand: you are selecting against people who are depressed. Rather than try to help them, you'd rather let them wallow in misery, fail, become unemployed, schizophrenic and eventually die homeless.

cbd1984 11y ago
Depression causes schizophrenia?
- brobdingnagian 11y ago
  I wouldn't say causes - but the statistics speak volumes. A quarter of homeless people are schizophrenic.
  - minimaxir 11y ago
    Correlation does not imply causation.
    - brobdingnagian 11y ago
      Have enough heart to acknowledge what's going on in front of you.
  - jordigh 11y ago
    That's because the schizophrenics were basically evicted from the psychiatric hospitals. With nowhere to go and no one to care for them, they ended up homeless. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_and_mental_health#Deinstitutionalization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_and_mental_health... Also, how did you manage to relate this at all to TFA?
    - brobdingnagian 11y ago
      That accounts for some of the homeless schizophrenics. "Also, how did you manage to relate this at all to TFA?" Just what exactly do you think the real world implications of this attitude / policy are more generally? "It’s terribly difficult to manage unmotivated people. Make your job easier and don’t." He is saying: don't try to manage them. Fire them.
    - DanBC 11y ago
      You see higher rates of schizophrenia amoung homeless people in countries that have free health care and enough in-patient mental health beds. EG England, where mental health care is generally okay.
  - DanBC 11y ago
    Depression and psychotic illnesses are very different. You probably have your causal link backwards: mental illness creates homelessness and vulnerably housed situations. The homelessness and vulnerably housed situations don't help people with a psychotic illness (contributing to medication non-compliance); and there is probably some situational depression there too. But it's probably wrong to say that homelessness cuses schizophrenia.
pen2l 11y ago
That's horribly off-topic, but I'll continue being horribly off-topic, only because I had a very strong realization about this today. My boss has been bugging me to get stuff done since there are some crazy deadlines coming up for us. I realized a few days ago that were it not for the craziness at work, I would be very lonely... I have nothing to do. And it's precisely when I have nothing to do that I start having negative or suicidal thoughts. So having a job really is a blessing for me, it gives me something to keep my mind preoccupied, and gives me an easy opportunity to socialize (walking up to someone and starting a conversation with someone is a lot easier.. when... well, you have to, because work requires that you have to :)).
- brobdingnagian 11y ago
  Thanks for sharing. I don't think it's off topic. "It’s terribly difficult to manage unmotivated people. Make your job easier and don’t." It's just a really really mean thing to say, especially coming from someone who is a manager / mentor.
  - pen2l 11y ago
    I agree that's a shitty thing. Also, sadly, it is a norm to think in this bleakly capitalistic way. By and large, you will not see normal people viewing the providing job/no job thing as something moral.
  - jordigh 11y ago
    I understand trying to be humane to everyone, but you cannot just decide to not fire anyone, ever. If someone does not want to be at a job, it is not an act of charity to keep them at that job. If they really do not want to be there, they can cause a lot more grief to themselves or others. It's cruel to be kind. You're not Schindler. Firing people is not a death sentence. If you fear for their mental health, fire them and direct them to services that can help. Hell, companies even do this routinely in a fashion: it's called outplacement.
    - smacktoward 11y ago
oh_sigh 11y ago
Not to be heartless, but why would it be a businesses concern if someone was depressed or not?
- brobdingnagian 11y ago
  Let's do a reductio-style thought experiment: what if everyone was depressed? That's obviously a business concern. The standard argument for socialism follows from the same reductio: what if everyone was happy? That would be GREAT for business.
  - adventured 11y ago
    The second one is not true. Utopia of happiness would result in vast stagnation. Agitation, annoyance, something needing fixed, imperfection, desire for more / self-improvement, etc. is a critical root of invention and creativity. Ideally not everyone is perfectly happy all at the same time. And it should be noted that is not the same as saying that everyone should never be happy. Rather, that it's incredibly valuable to have dissatisfied people in society - they're often the ones that break with the status quo and push humanity forward.
  - Sideloader 11y ago
    You are an idiot and I am so fucking glad I never have to work under assholes like you ever again. Oh, nice straw man you've built. Because treating employees like human beings = slippery slope to socialism. The level of fail in American management culture boggles the mind. These sad fools don't get that employee productivity and, thus, the company's earnings, would improve if they treated people with basic respect. An employee who actually wants to be at work is much more productive than the person who dreads coming to work every day. A lot of managers are assholes just because they can be and they should be fired on sight because their incompetence drags the entire team down and saddles the company with a shitty reputation. A miserable demotivated workforce plus a bad reputation in the industry (all of which could easily have been avoided) is like regularly shovelling bundles of $100 bills into the basement incinerator. Sadly, many companies shovel many bundles into many fires all over the nation and then promote the lead shoveller so he can start burning $1000 bundles.

jqm 11y ago

I thought this was a good article. I believe most people who are worth having want to be part of something bigger themselves, want to contribute to the world and are willing to sacrifice a bit to do so. These are the people to identify and reward and it is always frustrating when this doesn't happen. Per brobdingnagian's comment... everyone has bad days on occasion. A good manager can work around this. But a workplace is about work. Not therapy.

brobdingnagian 11y ago
That's really a false dichotomy. Ideally you aren't a nice person outside of work and a jerk at work. You are just a nice person. And if you see someone struggling, you don't fire them: you help them. Just like most of the best practices here haven't been tied to success, it's also true that helping people going through a hard time hasn't been tied to failure. The right thing to do is really obvious here. Help them.
- technofiend 11y ago
  Well you say that but I work at a very high pressure job that requires me to be far harsher towards employees than friends. I test as ENTP at work and INTJ at home just because success at work requires a different mindset. I don't like it, but that's how it is.
  - brobdingnagian 11y ago
    "I don't like it, but that's how it is." No arguing with that. In the long run, we can hopefully select against business practices that have these kinds of human costs.
  - wtvanhest 11y ago
    The last company I worked for was extremely high pressure, but I never encountered anyone who was harsh. They would be fired. It just isn't necessary. Also, ENTP & INTJ all that stuff is proven to be bunk with no statistical evidence that it predicts anything.

kzhahou 11y ago

When did it become a Universal Truth that good management requires regular scheduled 1-1s (weekly or biweekly at most)? Clearly managers should meet frequently and in depth with people on the team, but the "regular 1-on-1" thing is mantra, and I'm not sure there's research/evidence to support its efficacy. People never look forward to them. You gotta remember everything you did that week so you can report on it (even when told the 1-1 isn't meant for status reports... it kinda always is). You gotta think of some issue to bring up to manager's attention. It interrupts your whole day. Your manager didn't yet help you on your problem from last week -- now they want to listen thoughtfully to problems this week? From the manager's POV: You've been keeping up with the team members all week, helping out and checking in every day... now you're gonna lose one or two days with back-to-back 1-1s which leave your voice hoarse. They need a few more days to finish out whatever you discussed last week... should you cancel the 1-1 and sync up on the next week (and lose the 1-1 tempo), or have a "no-diff" meeting that you both know you coulda skipped?

Blackthorn 11y ago
> People never look forward to them. I'm sorry, but...speak for yourself. I have nothing but respect for my manager and he respects me as well. It's there so if I have some persistent problem or concern with our project's direction, they can help. And, yes, it does provide the opportunity for you to market yourself and what you've done. Marketing is important.
- PurplePanda 11y ago
  If I had some persistent problem or concern I would just bring it up, I wouldn't wait for some scheduled meeting. I guess some managers might not be so easily available.
  - balls187 11y ago
    Or some employees don't feel comfortable bringing it up.
  - bikesandcode 11y ago

lohengramm 11y ago

"It’s terribly difficult to manage unmotivated people. Make your job easier and don’t." And where is the challenge if everyone is highly motivated and easy to manage? Then you can just leave the programmers alone. They don't need management in this case.

bitmage 11y ago
There's another critical role in many organizations for your manager; defending your team against other managers. Otherwise your highly-motivated group will become less so as they are blamed for failures beyond their control, have their schedules randomly changed for 'urgent' work, etc.
mosquito242 11y ago
management at that point becomes providing direction and helping focus priorities and helping your programmers be their best.
wcrichton 11y ago
Just because people are highly motivated doesn't mean they're intrinsically organized. You can leave the programmers alone, but you still need someone to decide what they're working on and how to best allocate resources. A manager ensures a team stays coordinated.
- nbm 11y ago
  I've found that groups of individual contributors are actually very good on deciding what is important, what they should work on and when, and how to work together to get things done. Managers can provide a useful role in setting the scene, reminding what the goals of the organisation, the department, and so forth are, and how this connects with what the team is doing. They are perhaps most useful in working with individuals who aren't working well as part of the team at the moment - giving them feedback, mentorship, building bridges, connecting them with people, training, and so forth. In my opinion, managers hurt more than not if they override the self-organisation of teams, and this most hurts when you need two teams to work together - and one of the managers has (explicitly, perhaps) made it clear that doing things "off the plan" is not appreciated.

danieltillett 11y ago

Number 6 was the hardest for me to learn - I always wanted to give people another chance to change, but they never did. It is always hard to fire someone, but once you have reached the decision to fire do it as soon as possible.

nbm 11y ago

If one considers the primary purpose of managers to be to improve the performance of those that report to them, then this list starts poorly. It _is_ terribly difficult to manage unmotivated people, but most people only end up unmotivated because of poor management. And it's usually cheaper and ultimately better to motivate a proved achiever who has lower motivation than to find a replacement.

danieltillett 11y ago
The most unmotivated people I have ever had the displeasure of having to manage were people I had no ability to fire or promote. There is basically nothing you can do yet higher management still holds you responsible for the lack of results.
- skeeterbug 11y ago
  If you can't fire or promote them are you really their manager?
  - balls187 11y ago
    Even if you are in an "At-Will" employment state, it's not as simple to fire an employee. You have to have HR involved, and prepare enough documentation to satisfy the need to terminate someone. In smaller orgs with no HR, it's probably easier, but larger companies have a specific process. Though to your point, I would not consider myself someones manager unless I had the option to hire, fire, or promote them.
  - yeukhon 11y ago
    Union, tenure, or simply no from upper management. Sometimes people deliver the result but they may behave in a way that shows they are not motivated. That is a hard thing to use to fire someone.
    - danieltillett 11y ago
      Exactly. My experience is from within the university system where nobody can be fired for non-performance. You get people that are just waiting to retire and don't care about anyone other than themselves.

codinghorror 11y ago

Hmm. Sam was only at Imgur for less than a year. That's a lot of management lessons for a limited period of time...

balls187 11y ago
Maybe he was a quick study?
taw-snark0 11y ago
He writes well, but is only 2 years out of college (Stanford '13). Learning that (and noticing how he obfuscated it on his LinkedIn) made me take this piece with an even larger grain of salt than I would normally have.
- nathankleyn 11y ago
  He probably obfuscated that fact so people wouldn't judge him just by his age; it would seem based on some of the comments in this thread that he was right to do so. Some of the best lessons in life can come from those who haven't been tainted by long stints doing the very thing they're commenting on.
  - taw-snark0 11y ago
    Managing teams should be about the long term. Any understanding this guy has of the long-term effects of his management style is necessarily second-hand. It's not about age, but experience (and honestly representing yourself in the world). N.B. I'm not saying he shouldn't write, or that he doesn't have valuable insights to offer, just that the author's experience is fair ground for discussion.
BinaryIdiot 11y ago
You'd be surprised with how many lessons you can take away from even a short period of taking a new position. For instance I had done very limited management in my past. When a new project came up the company I worked at they had made me lead the project which essentially meant developer + manager. This employer also had the habit of under staffing teams while pushing very aggressive timelines. This lead me to try to manage a team of 6 while also coding around the clock for several months. When it came to review time I was a mess; I hadn't paid enough attention to my team, I was constantly scrambling for tasks, trying to find ways to help where necessary, etc. It was an incredible trial-by-fire. When it came to my second stint at the same position for a new project I was ready. I gave constant feedback in real-time, I was able to keep on top of tasks, my meetings were more streamlined and I was able to estimate things far better; I did a 180 and became much more effective.

overgard 11y ago

I definitely agree with the importance of feedback. I think companies sometimes tend to be too polite. (Don't get me wrong -- you don't want rudeness, but directness is valuable). There's nothing more frustrating than spending a lot of time on a project and having no idea if you're creating value, or walking down a rabbit hole that is not useful.

foopants 11y ago

Imgur censors images that point out the dangers of obesity, and promotes images that encourage obesity. Use slimgur instead.

balls187 11y ago

Good list, but what this hits on is managing down, and not much on how to manage up, or manage across. In my experience, I've found managing a team fairly easy--I just think about all the things my great managers did, and try to emulate them. Managing up, and managing other teams however, has been a real learning experience.

mordrax 11y ago

"It’s terribly difficult to manage unmotivated people. Make your job easier and don’t." I want to add to this by saying, it's terribly difficult to keep yourself motivated in a team with unmotivated people. I left my last job because all the team cared about was money, job security and doing their 9-5. At my current place, we could fire half the staff and the company wouldn't miss a beat. Sadly, there is no management, leadership or clear direction. We are self managed and so it's very easy to spot the handful of proactive staff because they usually end up picking up all the tasks which eventually causes burnouts and reduced motivation etc... I've tried to motivate my team mates but how do you motivate someone who's comfortable and secure in their 9-5 and don't really care to achieve any more than mediocre? Nobody gets fired and everyone's on pretty good pay for the job they do. So I really do agree with this point. Find people who are not satisfied with the status quo. You can't change everyone, in fact, you can't change anyone. All a manager can do is hope to keep these people accountable if they do not hold themselves responsible.

ryandrake 11y ago
I would imagine that people motivated mainly by money are among the easiest to manage. There's no guesswork there. Give them clear, measurable performance goals, with dollar signs attached to each one. Done. In my view, money also is a good fallback motivation, if you can't figure out exactly what it is that someone wants out of his job, or you can't provide it. Truly, I've probably had only one job in my life where I honestly thought "I wouldn't stay here NO MATTER WHAT they pay me!"
- erikb 11y ago
  I'd say I'm not a money oriented person. E.g., looking at the income statistics of my city I think that my chances are >50% if I find any other job. But I think what you say would highly motivate me anyway. People like numbers and making numbers bigger. That's why people feel bad if they don't get enough Facebook likes. So if you give people clear numbers and a path to increase the numbers they will be motivated to do it, even if they don't care what the numbers stand for.
- cosmolev 11y ago

caseyf7 11y ago

Didn't Imgur have a total of 13 people last year?

mburst 11y ago
Yea we've grown like crazy over the past year. We're now up to around 55 people.
- nbm 11y ago
  My experience is that interesting things happen to organisations at size 20-30 (basically when the CEO and/or COO can no longer keep tabs on nearly everything themselves, no longer can maintain some relationship with all staff), and also when there are more than 33% of people with <6 months at the company. Hope this wasn't as painful as some of my experiences with just single dosages of these at a time.

spotman 11y ago

I like a lot of these very much and agree. Thanks for posting.

zongitsrinzler 11y ago

These 21 points make Imgur seem like an over-managed hell pit to work at.

prawn 11y ago
I think that if good management were following these rules, you wouldn't even know it was happening. It'd be more like guiding and less like controlling.

mandeepj 11y ago

> Give feedback frequently and directly. As a manager, it’s easier to wait and then hedge critical feedback in soft wrappers, but that’s selfish. I’d try to give feedback as soon as I could grab a conference room with the person, and not wait until the formal 1:1 days later. I really wish if everyone could think like this. What is the point in giving feedback after 6 or 12 months during appraisal. That is also done as part of formality.

mathattack 11y ago

Many gems are in here. - If you can’t fire friends, don’t hire them. - Finally, firing for bad performance is easier than having to fire good people because you’ve run out of money, so fire the bad people before you have to fire the good people too. - The best way to avoid politics isn’t to ignore politics, but to spend your time on it. I'm interested in the backstory of the author too.

ryandrake 11y ago

> Define clear merit-based systems, which reduces confusion about what your team members need to do be recognized. This is a great one, I wish more companies/managers did this. It's terrible when your company's advancement policy is "if your manager like you, you get promoted". It's demotivating when your bonus is based on someone's subjective feeling about how good a job you're doing, or some ridiculous self-assessment essay. Give me clear, measurable goals, and a clear, scheduled (on the calendar) performance review. Ship Product A or complete features B and C on time and your next raise will be X. Ship it on time and under budget and your bonus will be Y. Otherwise, Z% cost of living increase only.

skrebbel 11y ago
Nearly everything i care about in a great programmer is way less well measurable than "ship feature X on time". I like your sentiment but I think real good work (for any office job, really) is very hard to measure.
cactusface 11y ago
What if all your time is spent cleaning up after the cowboys? Or talking to the other team members about the problems they are stuck working on? A mission critical 2-line bugfix can take months. There aren't objective measures of performance. Any metric you come up with, employees will find a way to thwart it. Shipping a product on time? Easy. Just don't mention the bugs. Surely you don't believe it's possible to create bug-free software, do you? When all the team members have their performance tied to them, they'll all collude to game metrics. Don't even get me started on SLOC. Speaking from experience here, sorry if it's too cynical / bitter.
- ryandrake 11y ago
  Picking good metrics that are not game-able is not easy, but as long as they are truly aligned with the company goals, it's kind of OK for people to optimize for them. You get the behavior that you measure. From the point of view of an employee, anything is better than "your compensation depends on the subjective assessment of your manager". Talk about a system that can be gamed!

known 11y ago

Management inversely proportional to adversity & diversity

AriaMinaei 11y ago

>> Define success clearly and don’t flip-flop on the definition without new information. Does anyone have an example for this?

datashovel 11y ago

The tone of the list seemed to draw a line between the "manager" and the "managed". Personally I think the best way to manage a team is to draw a line between the "team" (including management) and the "objectives". The seemingly tough part with doing things this way is to be able to draw a line between individuals and the rest of the team if someone isn't holding up their weight. It sounds tough, but I think it doesn't have to be as tough as it sounds. If people are given enough independence and individual responsibilities, but in a collaborative setting, it will become obvious to the entire team when individuals are not carrying their weight. Keep in mind that once a person becomes a member of your team you're in it for the long haul. Every once in a while a team needs to rally to achieve objectives, since it's almost impossible to give perfectly equal distribution of work in a project. Every once in a while individuals need to be propped up by the rest of the team if they're having difficulties with their individual responsibilities. It should only become a problem when the same individuals, over the course of an extended period of time, fail to meet their objectives. And even then if the company is large enough they should be given an opportunity to move laterally within the company to move to another team. If individuals fail regularly within multiple teams at that point it becomes obvious they may need to be let go. With all that said, different projects / companies have different budgets and so they may need to cut corners. That's why it's important to be careful to select people you are in it for the long haul with, and are willing to put the time and energy into that person as an investment for the betterment of the company. Sudden turnover is one of the worst things for morale in any company. Avoid it at just about any cost, except in extraordinary circumstances.

lifeisstillgood 11y ago

> People need to feel like they’ve been listened to, not to make the final call. Take the time to listen (you might be wrong), make a decision and then explain the decision. Don’t offer commentary on others’ decisions until you understand why the decisions were made. very true

Fede_V 11y ago

I wanted to focus on one thing which I really liked in that list. The author stresses the need to explain the rationale for decisions (aka, why we are going to focus on x, instead of y) rather than presenting all decisions as unquestionable and infallible edicts from god. This doesn't mean that every employee will agree with every decision taken from management - but hearing the whys, and understanding the debate that went into taking a decision helps a lot in getting buy in and getting people to go that extra mile.

jaimebuelta 11y ago

The first point is very important. Motivate someone is quite complicated, but demotivate is extremely easy. Unfortunately, we people are weird and complex, and sometimes random stupid things can make a huge deal in terms os motivation. When I think back on the things that had really infuriated me about works and managers, they are typically small, avoidable things; not big ones... PD: Reading some comments on the thread, I understand this as "do not demotivate people" more than "fire unmotivated people"

nowprovision 11y ago

This is kind of sad to read, and certainly not a manager Id like to work with, is this even a company that is profitable? Didnt someone buy this for a stupid amount years ago?. Back on subject, an unmotivated employee is usually a symptom a problem with the company or culture, especially if he/she is an experienced hire that has many years of real world experience, why were they motivated/productive before and not now?. Perhaps the company is blind that they have a problem? Perhaps they tick many boxes on Stackoverflow check list and many employees are HN followers so it can't be a culture problem? Just food for thought..

nowprovision 11y ago

This is kind of sad to read, and certainly not a manager Id like to work with, is this even a company that is profitable? Didnt someone buy this for a stupid amount years ago?. Back on subject, an unmotivated employee is usually a symptom a problem with the company or culture, especially if he/she is an experienced hire that has many years of real world experience, why were they motivated/productive before and not now?. Perhaps the company is blind that they have a problem? Perhaps they tick many boxes on Stackoverflow check list and many employees are HN followers so I can't be a culture problem? Just food for thought..

song 11y ago

"Fire quickly. If you don’t fire bad performers fast, you’re at risk of losing your good performers. Don’t underestimate the effect bad performers have on good performers. Your team will likely move faster even with fewer bodies." and "It’s terribly difficult to manage unmotivated people. Make your job easier and don’t." are very very important. In the previous company I created, I had to keep an incompetent and lazy employee to appease my cofounder because he was friend with him. There's nothing worse for team motivation than having an incompetent and lazy untouchable employee... Never ever do that. Oh and if you ever find yourself with a cofounder who wants to keep an employee because he is his friend regardless of performance, treat that as a huge red flag...

fallat 11y ago
Ok, the example you gave is fine. But there is something that scares me a little. Could a "bad performer" mean someone who just can't output as much as everyone else, even though they are trying as hard as possible? What if they exhibit strong self-motivation to learn, but have a difficult time implementing something that would otherwise be easy for someone else?... It scares me as a (well, I consider myself, but I've been developing software for 5+ years...) junior software developer that I might be compared to seniors or "prodigy" developers. The only thing I can do is keep pushing my limits and reach those levels, and I'm lucky to be one of those self-motivated people. But the others...it sounds hopeless.
- song 11y ago
  In my experience, determination and perseverance trumps raw talent. If you really push yourself to the limit and are passionate enough about what you're doing to try to improve yourself, you're going to be a better asset in the long term for a team compared to someone who understand things easily but doesn't really try to improve himself unless he has to. Even in term of team morale, someone who tries hard and pushes himself to the limit is motivating. So I wouldn't worry too much about it (plus you might just have imposter syndrome and discount what you really know ;-))
  - fallat 11y ago

Giorgi 11y ago

That was surprisingly on topic and good.

mokash 11y ago

Enjoying your work and working 9 to 5 on-the-dot aren't mutually exclusive.

thejay 11y ago

Great discussions. Having had some startup experience myself I would add that people have drastically different levels of understanding and common sense, so they will interpret what they see and read differently. There is no shortage of books/blogs on management or leadership or product management, but things don't really change and the same mistakes are being made every single day in startups.

meesterdude 11y ago

This was not only a good post, but the presentation was straight to the point: no fluff, all meat. I really appreciate that, and wish more went that route.

kenko 11y ago

"It’s terribly difficult to manage unmotivated people. Make your job easier and don’t. Different people need different kinds of management. Be adaptable to figure out what drives each person’s best performance." This juxtaposition is deliberate irony, right?