[HN Gopher] Good leaders know you can't fight reality
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Good leaders know you can't fight reality
Author : adrian_mrd
Score : 78 points
Date : 2021-10-08 17:12 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (hbr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (hbr.org)
| joe_the_user wrote:
| Here, "reality" is just shorthand for "what you can't fight". So
| if you can fight it, it wasn't really reality, now was it?
|
| Determining whether a given situation can be changed or just
| needs to be accepted is a difficult challenge, one where there's
| not absolute formulas.
|
| The main thing in these discussions is bosses or higher bosses
| tend to demand results regardless of the challenge of a
| situation. And oppositely, underlings often ask constantly for
| exceptions. So the _word_ "reality" is great as rhetoric for
| justifying those things you can't or just don't want to change.
| Which to say all this discussion about _how things should be
| framed_ and very little is "reality-reality", how the world is,
| since that's complex and difficult to be certain of. IE, saying
| "that's just reality" a good tactic to get out of tough binds.
| ironmagma wrote:
| Another way to say it is that leaders know what to fight and
| what not to fight. This is why doers will always be the best
| leaders; what better way to know what's reasonable in a
| practice than by practicing it yourself?
| lisper wrote:
| A better way to phrase it would have been: "You cannot bend
| reality to your will simply by denying that it is what it is at
| the moment." (c.f. the manager who bellowed "I will not accept
| this forecast!") But that's not nearly as catchy a slogan as
| "you can't fight reality" notwithstanding that the latter is,
| as you point out, a vacuous tautology. For better or worse,
| part of current reality is that people are more attracted to
| catchy slogans than to nuanced truths, and so choosing to use
| the slogan is actually an example of employing the underlying
| advice.
| atoav wrote:
| _" Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it,
| doesn't go away."_
|
| -- Philip K. Dick, I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon
| jfengel wrote:
| Sure you can. Maybe not forever, but for a really long time. At
| least long enough for you to turn a serious profit and get out.
|
| As the saying goes, the market can remain irrational longer than
| you can remain solvent. TFA isn't really about markets, but the
| same principle applies. People aren't rational, and can deny
| reality indefinitely.
|
| The reckoning comes eventually, but even when it does, it's
| almost always messy and unclear. You're practically never forced
| to admit that you're wrong, even if it's obvious.
|
| Going with reality is the safe bet. But real winners, and real
| leaders, can look for an edge by skirting the safe bet. Maybe
| reality will slam them in the face for it, but it may not. If it
| always did, we wouldn't have to write articles about it.
| bopbeepboop wrote:
| Also!
|
| That same reality warping ability is necessary for a company:
|
| The truth is no five people with a less than $1M are impressive
| as they are, so you _need_ to sell that vision. And you need to
| sell at the next rounds of funding. Okay, now you're all grown
| up -- but your leaders are accustomed to that mindset.
|
| And when you're mature, you _need_ to sell the workforce on a
| vision of the world as it could be. If you can't imagine a
| different world and believe it, you won't make an iPhone.
|
| The secret sauce of being a good leader is balancing the
| reality as-it-is with as-it-could-be.
|
| I think like many healthy-but-complex behaviors this dreaming
| can go really wrong when abused or with comorbidities (eg,
| narcissistic CEO).
| bobthechef wrote:
| > People aren't rational
|
| People are rational by nature, but they can either choose
| irrationality because pride stands in the way of accepting the
| truth, or because of some mental defect or error.
|
| > Going with reality is the safe bet. But real winners, and
| real leaders, can look for an edge by skirting the safe bet.
| Maybe reality will slam them in the face for it, but it may
| not. If it always did, we wouldn't have to write articles about
| it.
|
| No idea what you're claiming here with this mumbo jumbo.
| Reality is nonnegotiable. It's already here. It doesn't consult
| with us. You can't skirt it because it is the case. What you
| can do is skirt something undesirable by acknowledging that
| things as they are are headed in the direction of the
| undesirable and change course, or repair after you've gotten
| into a undesirable place.
| LocalH wrote:
| Sure, reality is objective. But that's not what we perceive.
| We perceive reality as filtered through our psyche. No human
| has ever perceived objective reality, and none ever will.
| alexpetralia wrote:
| Much of what we call "reality" is really just social
| consensus, and thus is liable to negotiation and
| redefinition.
| kaiju0 wrote:
| This is perfectly shown through We Work with Adam Neumann. He
| pushed bullshit for a very long time. Then ran out before the
| collapse came. By defying reality he won.
| peakaboo wrote:
| All companies currently pushing the "we are family" culture
| are doing exactly what he did. Making dumb employees work
| harder because they feel their life purpose is to help the
| company.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| The most honest form of roughly "we are family" I have seen
| is a maintained social contract of avoiding layoffs but a
| relatively stagnant base salary. A trade of stability for
| worse rates.
| mokss wrote:
| You dont get it. Leaders are people who dont get out.
| nostrademons wrote:
| I think a better way of phrasing this might be "Don't believe
| your own bullshit." Fighting reality can be an effective
| _tactic_ , particularly if by distorting reality, you make the
| reality you want to exist come about. But you should _know this
| is what you 're doing_. Understand the risks you're taking and
| what has to go from bullshit to reality to make your larger
| vision come true.
|
| A lot of leaders sink because they mistake their vision for the
| world, and then block out uncomfortable information that they
| really need to pay attention to in order to make their vision
| come true.
| hungryforcodes wrote:
| There's a book in there somewhere...
| whatshisface wrote:
| The book's title is _Bad Blood_ , and it describes Theranos
| in close personal detail.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| Agreed. The 'fake it till you make it' is a saying for a
| reason. My favorite example is Tesla, where Musk himself
| eventually agreed they almost went bankrupt at one point. It is
| a fascinating lesson in perception, but I am not sure it is a
| good one.
| jterrys wrote:
| Hmm. The article is a fluff piece about not being an asshole.
| (And not leading like Stalin i.e getting rid of everyone that
| brings any negative news)
|
| That being said, the author is a consultant for large cap
| corporations with rigid cost structures and well defined business
| plans. I mention this because this forum is primarily startup
| focused. You always need some amount of err, "hopium" to struggle
| through the initial phases. Accepting reality isn't necessarily
| in your best interests. Businesses have different life cycles,
| the growth phase compared to the mature/sunsetting phase of a
| business are vastly different. The author is a consultant that
| has worked primarily on the latter.
| [deleted]
| BatFastard wrote:
| Stress is your resistance to reality.
| jeffrallen wrote:
| In humanitarian aid security management, you take rumors
| seriously, as a reflection of the reality "the street" dictates.
|
| I've been in a situation where staff was worried that a currency
| was going to be devalued, and "word on the street" was that there
| could be trouble after pay day if pay was in the wrong currency.
| My country financial controller made a quick decision: we don't
| pay in that currency, we pay in the one "the street" believes is
| safe. It didn't change anything for us as an employer, just kept
| our staff safe by being on the "right side" of reality. We left
| it to the embassy and national bank to fight the (losing) war
| trying to prop up confidence in the currency.
| jokoon wrote:
| A very important fallacy to remember is the just world
| hypothesis.
|
| A thriving civilization brought democracy, the republic and free
| speech which allowed many improvements in society.
|
| But civilization has improved so much, and religion has really
| taught us the world should be fair, we still have good vs evil
| ingrained in our thought system.
|
| Evil is completely natural, so you can't bring progress if people
| refuse to investigate where there's evil.
|
| When people are really able to understand the world is unfair by
| definition, and that fairness is the exception and not the rule,
| everything becomes much easier.
| imtringued wrote:
| The "Just-world hypothesis" is a fallacy on the individual
| level. On a societal level it is pretty close to the truth
| though. People want an unfair society and that is what they
| get, ironic isn't it?
|
| It should be renamed justly unjust world hypothesis.
| bobthechef wrote:
| I'm shocked by this article. If it has wide appeal, then it is a
| condemnation of ALL OF US. Those who do not accept things as they
| are when they know what they are are living in denial. Is that
| not obviously bad? It should be. Even if you are in denial about
| something, you should at least know that what you're doing is
| bad.
|
| The four cardinal virtue begin with prudence, and prudence
| presupposes humility. What is humility (the real meaning, not the
| common counterfeit meaning of false modesty)? It is a
| habitualized disposition to readily accept truth when you see it,
| without that inner rebellion and refusal to accept what doesn't
| conform to your desires. That habit puts you in alignment with
| reality which allow for prudence which is the ability to make
| good decisions based the prevailing reality you find yourself in.
| With prudence, it is possible to be just; with justice,
| courageous; with courage, temperate.
|
| The absence of humility is pride, a rebellious and frankly
| infantile attitude toward the truth because it's not what you
| want. It is insanity achieved through immorality and the very
| basis for all immoral acts.
|
| With the pervasiveness of belief in subjectivist "narratives",
| constructivist thinking, indifference to the truth
| (characteristic of bullshitters), and all sorts of stupid New
| Age-y superstitions that revolve around the preposterous notion
| that you can create your own reality, I am not surprised the
| obvious needs to be stated.
|
| To place truth above all things, above ourselves even, and our
| conformity to it, are our moral obligation and essential to the
| good life. If your car is headed toward a cliff, imagining you're
| in an airplane won't save you from the fall, and it won't help
| lashing out at those who warn you of where you're headed.
| 627467 wrote:
| If only reality was easily known...
| svilen_dobrev wrote:
| What were the 5 stages in the All that jazz movie...
|
| found it: https://wiki.c2.com/?FiveStagesOfGrief
|
| Denial - Anger - Bargaining - Depression - Acceptance
| marktangotango wrote:
| One thing I've noticed is that the perception of reality varies
| by scope of the viewer. An example I've lived a few years ago;
| from a high level (c-suite) an acquisition can have subsidiarys
| that aren't aligned with the main business and will never meet
| the profit margin required. Thus if the low margin subsidiary
| loses customers and whithers away, it's not really a big deal. In
| fact it's probably favorable to the bottom line for the
| subsidiary to do the bare minimum to keep the lights on. Ideally
| the subsidiary can be sold or spun off. Sometimes that's not
| possible.
|
| I lived the smaller scope as a software development manager in
| the subsidiary. Merit increases were minimal or non existent,
| annual layoffs were normal. My peers were passionate about the
| customers and continuing to support them even though it was clear
| from the C-level actions they cared nothing for the business. At
| my level there was a lot of anguish and consternation about the
| customers and business. As expected, the subsidiary started
| seeing a lot resignation as the most experienced people left,
| accelerating the decline. My team saw 75% attrition in 6 months.
| Customers started leaving.
|
| The old saying "perception is reality" has some bearing here. I
| still ask myself, is this not the outcome the executive sought in
| this situation? I personally believe it was, no one could be that
| incompetent, could they?
| PeterisP wrote:
| This could very well be a calculated decision. It's well known
| in financial management how product lines develop in general
| and how you manage their lifecycle profitably; most product
| lines aren't forever, some of your products will be at a
| investment stage (expenses with a calculation of future profit
| extraction), for many there's a growth stage where you reinvest
| profits to gain revenue, there's a stable running stage where
| you get some sustainable margins, and there's often an
| extraction/"milking" stage with intentional unsustainably high
| margins - one well-known way to shut down a product is to milk
| it until death while starving it of any resources. In quite a
| few (though not nearly all) cases that is the most profitable
| way of closing down a product line for which you don't think a
| long-term future is profitable; you cut expenses so that you
| extract at least some profits out of the inertia as opposed to
| running at near-zero profits until it eventually dies anyway.
|
| It would certainly be incompetent to just keep investing in all
| declining product lines; it's a valid business strategy to buy
| (or build) a product with no long-term future and extract as
| much as you can before it collapses - the point of the business
| is not to sustain/operate products as long as possible, but to
| extract as much profit as possible from those products. Extra
| investment in a declining product might make the product last,
| say, two years longer - but will those last two years be
| _profitable_ enough (as opposed to just self-sustaining) to
| repay that investment? Business always has to take care to not
| fall for the sunk cost fallacy.
| cryptica wrote:
| Good leaders may know you can't fight realty but the the best
| leaders know how to create a new reality.
| WalterBright wrote:
| The trouble is, everyone has a different opinion on what reality
| is.
| ajb wrote:
| So much. It's so frustrating to work under someone who fights
| reality.
|
| Effective leaders may be enormously determined, but they can
| still factually assess the details of the situation in order to
| understand what needs to change in order to change reality. Where
| a "reality distortion field" becomes a problem is when it
| undermines the leaders ability to observe and orient to the
| situation.
|
| At the best of times a leader is at risk of setting up a
| situation where they are told what they want to hear. A CEO can
| always find someone willing to tell them "yes". It requires self
| discipline to avoid this pitfall, and it also requires judgement
| - sometimes your staff do develop tunnel vision and another voice
| is required.
|
| This is not easy. The article paints a good picture of the
| problem, but doesn't really offer much in the way of actionable
| solutions.
| kordlessagain wrote:
| Now if only everyone would stop inviting their own reality we
| would have it made!
| mistermann wrote:
| If people didn't imagine their own reality, what then are they
| to believe? "Real" reality? Which one?
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| "You can't defeat reality" has been my favorite line with some
| managers lately. I have been in plenty of planning meetings where
| somebody declared that something needs to be done by end of month
| or the world will go under. When you point out to them that X,Y
| and Z need to be done before that and historically they never got
| done in under six weeks they just don't accept it. Of course
| things don't get done by end of month, the world doesn't go under
| and the same thing will happen again with the next project.
|
| I find it really tiring to not being able to have an honest
| conversation with leaders. There are probably plenty of things
| that can be improved but first you need to accept reality before
| you can make meaningful changes.
|
| I often feel that middle management is one big pyramid of people
| bullshitting each other constantly and people seem ok with that.
| crispyambulance wrote:
| It seems to me that managers who make "impossible" demands that
| flout reality believe, in their heads, that they're in some
| kind of negotiation. They may fully realize that what they're
| demanding is impossible but feel that by making the demand, it
| will force a greater sense of urgency and thus "speed up"
| delivery.
|
| There's another, perhaps more insidious, variant of this when
| managers ask YOU "How long will X take?" It's often asked
| casually. But your answer, which you _think_ reciprocates the
| casual-ness, is then taken as a hard deadline regardless
| whatever surprises pop up (even if the manager knows there 's
| going to be curveballs). Failure to meet the deadline is then
| fully your responsibility. It's something that everyone learns
| sooner or later in their careers-- to not make casual
| estimates, EVER.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| I think we've evolved to the point where middle management no
| longer involves a coherently planning or organizing process.
| Rather, middle management comes up with justification to force
| more out of people and the underlings both plan and execute the
| results.
|
| See The Gervais Principle:
| https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...
| agumonkey wrote:
| I believe there's an emotional gradient at play.
|
| High rank doesn't want to deal with reality, so he will add 2
| guys underneath who will absorb half the pressure each
| dealing with frictions and mishaps. Each layer wants to keep
| its status so they'll take some of the heat.
| ErrantX wrote:
| So interesting to hear some of these views.
|
| I am _totally_ middle management :)
|
| My sense is; at higher rank (i.e. those above me) the
| problems are more macro than micro and so are the
| motivations and _consequences_. Therefore reality is dealt
| with on a broader platform and you have people to deal with
| the detail.
|
| That's why my bosses boss has to worry about what error
| will land him in jail, and I just have to care about
| delivering some quarterly goal or other.
|
| (or in other words; that guy totally knows how hard it is
| to empower an organisation of 60+ engineering/product/agile
| folks to deliver consistently, but he doesn't really care
| because that's my problem)
| KineticLensman wrote:
| > You can't defeat reality"
|
| Yes, as in "You can fool the people, but you can't fool the
| laws of physics."
| agumonkey wrote:
| I need an ontological reason for the existence of these people.
|
| How many times they come down to operators (be it engineers or
| anything) and call for stuff to happen magically.
|
| It's never "so on average you need 1 week, what could be
| improved so we only take 6 days ? anything we can change or add
| ?"
| whatshisface wrote:
| I found that never saying no, but always responding with a list
| of what would be necessary in order to accomplish something,
| will connect a lot better than negativity.
|
| Contrast: "We need this by January." "No."
|
| with,
|
| "We need this by January." "Let's discuss the hiring process
| for the new team members we're going to need to accomplish
| that."
|
| Then they will either say "no" (what you were going for all
| along), or they will say "yes" and give you more resources.
|
| It is really quite rare to be asked for something that is truly
| impossible, usually it is merely impossible within the
| organizational boundaries you're used to working within. Also,
| people hate being told no but love saying it, so if you want a
| "no," you need to work out how it's going to be them saying it.
| rprospero wrote:
| Most experienced managers that I've met can work around that
| sort of comment:
|
| "We need this by January"
|
| "Let's discuss the hiring process for the new team members
| we're going to need to accomplish that."
|
| "We don't have the budget for hiring at the moment. If more
| headcount is truly necessary, you are welcome to use your
| salary to obtain it."
|
| 90% of the time, the project arrives lat, but there's no
| other major consequences and the manager points to this as
| evidence that you were padding your budget with superfluous
| resource. 9% of the time, you buy a new web server on your
| own credit card and the manager brags to his boss about
| coming in under budget. 1% of the time, catastrophe hits, the
| company goes bankrupt, and he tells everyone that call for a
| reference that your incompetence drove the company out of
| business.
|
| If you think this is hyperbole, a previous employer stated
| that a competent sysadmin would never lose data, so back-ups
| were a waste of money and made admins pay for them out of
| pocket.
| ErrantX wrote:
| > you are welcome to use your salary to obtain it
|
| > 9% of the time, you buy a new web server on your own
| credit card and the manager brags to his boss about coming
| in under budget
|
| I.... genuinely can't believe this is a common line.
| Companies do ask people to do ridiculous things in return
| for very little remuneration. But to fund the company
| yourself?
|
| (I do get the point your making BTW but the example can't
| be real!)
|
| > a previous employer stated that a competent sysadmin
| would never lose data, so back-ups were a waste of money
| and made admins pay for them out of pocket.
|
| The first part of that sounds like the natural tech-
| illiteracy of a business leader; the second part says they
| don't believe their own schtick.
| PeterisP wrote:
| This is _not_ how experienced or skilled managers handle
| it, this is how abusive incompetent managers act if people
| let them get away with it. The behavior you describe is
| both unprofessional (as in, ineffective) and immoral. The
| proper response to suggestions like you describe is "fuck
| you" in just as many words - have some self-respect,
| tolerating it is masochistic nonsense, there's no
| reasonable reason to pay out of your pocket for company
| needs. If they're your top boss then you don't want to work
| for people like that (and you don't want references from
| people like that); even if you're desperate, find a way out
| and quit (because most companies are _not_ how you
| describe); if there 's anybody above them, such a request
| (pay out of your pocket for webserver or backups) should be
| escalated with a "this is unacceptable, either you replace
| this manager or replace me" - not as an empty threat, but
| as a real course of action; because if the top management
| considers it acceptable, again, you should not be working
| there. The IT job market isn't _that_ bad anywhere so that
| sombeody would need to tolerate abuse that hits both your
| wallet and self-respect.
| [deleted]
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| ""We need this by January." "Let's discuss the hiring process
| for the new team members we're going to need to accomplish
| that.""
|
| The usual response is "Right now we don't have time/budget
| but we will look into it" and nothing gets done. But the
| deadline still stands.
|
| My main complaint is that a lot of managers don't really work
| with their underlings on issues to improve things.
| PeterisP wrote:
| And on the other hand, such an approach really helps in cases
| where extra resources would fix the problem.
|
| I recall a case many years ago when my employer had a
| networking issue at one of the branches where we could not
| get to a solution for weeks... until at one meeting with the
| outsourced provider reiterating that a proper fix was
| impossible, they started to explain why it was impossible,
| saying that they'd need to replace all the hardware along the
| route which would be extremely expensive. At which point we
| asked how much, they named a number, and it was easily
| affordable compared to the problems it was causing us so the
| issue was approved in the same meeting. And if only they had
| started with the same approach, we could have had it fixed
| right away instead of trying to fix an "impossible" issue for
| weeks.
| jeffrallen wrote:
| > if you want a "no," you need to work out how it's going to
| be them saying it.
|
| You, sir or madam, are an evil genius. I'd like to have you
| on my side of the negotiating table...
| gkilmain wrote:
| I think as long as you think (know?) this is true the easier it
| makes dealing with work stress. "It has to get done or else" is
| so common in my place it falls on deaf ears with most the devs.
|
| At my place, I think its more CYA than BS. "See VP Person, i
| said it has to get done or else!" so its not my fault!
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