[HN Gopher] Manager's Handbook
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Manager's Handbook
Author : bspear
Score : 60 points
Date : 2022-04-20 09:06 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (themanagershandbook.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (themanagershandbook.com)
| dominotw wrote:
| Being a manager in modern day means you have to accept being a
| devious person to a certain degree. You are in the middle of
| managing two conflicting goals of company and the employee. Each
| wants to extract as much as possible from the other.
|
| Promotions for example are always based on nebulous criteria that
| are often made up on the fly. Yea there are career ladders and
| stuff but those are totally ignored for all practical purposes.
| As a manager you have to make up BS on the fly when an employee
| asks you why they were not promoted despite doing everything you
| asked them to do. Pomotions aren't really in your control as a
| low lever manager.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > Promotions for example are always based on nebulous criteria
| that are often made up on the fly.
|
| I think you've worked at some very toxic work environments, but
| it's a mistake to suggest that your experience is the norm.
|
| It's funny to read HN comments about how all managers are
| terrible, devious people who are only out to abuse employees.
| Most of us managers started out as ICs. Do you really think we
| surrender our humanity and adopt evilness as our SOP on the day
| they give us our manager title? No, most of us enter management
| because we really like working with people and like helping
| people succeed. This idea that we only exist to spite employees
| is very childish.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| He didn't say that, he just said it's antagonistic by nature,
| nothing like what "you" accuse him of saying. That's fine,
| you know chess is like that, in fact any game where the goals
| are diametrically opposite. And they aren't completely
| diametrical, they ways in which they are not diametrical are
| just boring, nobody cares, yeah work hard yadda yadda, yeah
| be polite and show up on time, nobody cares. But like don't
| stop there! Work like fuck! Be gentlemanly or an assertive
| woman, or some analog that suits you! And show up on time
| like the bill from the cemetery! I did these things and
| didn't get promoted, but well no one time I was promoted
| actually, looking back...well but you gotta do it without
| counting the cost, real enthusiasm, a real work ethic! And
| knowing full well your employer might equally be, as an
| employee is out to leech, out to leech his employees.
| throwaway_1928 wrote:
| This article explains it pretty well:
| https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-
| principle-....
| atypeoferror wrote:
| There is a lot to unpack in this comment, but in general the
| situation described here is specific to certain kinds of
| organizations, with lamentably poor leadership and management
| cultures. If management views the employer-employee
| relationship as some sort of zero-sum game - they have already
| lost that game.
|
| In companies with mature (which doesn't mean old - a relatively
| young company can also be well-run!) structures, the criteria
| for promotion are not nebulous. I struggle to see the wisdom in
| setting goals for an employee's promotion without the intention
| of rewarding them for working hard to meet those goals.
|
| In general, I would encourage anyone who is in a working
| situation described above to look for another job - and ask
| about the management and leadership philosophy when you
| interview! As interviewers, we are comfortable asking hard
| questions, I don't see why being a candidate should be any
| different. Is there a structured feedback system in your
| company? What is it, and how closely does your team follow it?
| When was the last person in your team promoted, and how long
| were they in their previous role? etc.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| > and ask about the management and leadership philosophy when
| you interview!
|
| In theory, I agree. The reality is these orgs are crap for a
| reason...they drink too much of their own Kool Aid, they
| don't realize they have blindspots, etc.
|
| The point being, good luck getting a transparent and honest
| answer as that's the antithesis of their philosophy.
| atypeoferror wrote:
| True - this is why it's important to structure your
| questions in a way that makes it harder to BS - same as
| when interviewing someone, ask about specific instances of
| things.
|
| It's been a while since I've been a candidate, so I kinda
| winged it in the above comment, but if you want to be balsy
| (and why not!) you can ask something like "Can you tell me
| about the last time you had to give negative performance
| feedback?" You might want to preface such a question a bit
| to qualify your reasons for asking it, but that sort of
| thing is not easy to BS.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| Understood. It doesn't hurt to ask. I do agree. I'm just
| suspect of honest replies. They might not BS in the true
| sense. They just don't know what transparency and honesty
| is.
|
| Full disclosure: I just left a marketing agency that
| wasn't 25% of what they said it was. I had asked
| questions and the answers didn't match what was actually
| happening. Nice people. I don't think it was intentional
| per se. But they were so not self-aware that they had
| little idea how far off they were.
| dominotw wrote:
| > and ask about the management and leadership philosophy when
| you interview!
|
| Is this really useful though. They will always tell you what
| you want to hear, just like you say what they want to hear.
|
| > I struggle to see the wisdom in setting goals for an
| employee's promotion without the intention of rewarding them
| for working hard to meet those goals.
|
| Because low level managers don't really have the power to
| grant that promotion and are not in position to properly
| explain why they lost out the promotion to a peer from
| another team. There are a whole of unspoken things that
| factor into a promotion like gaining favor by pumping your
| manager/VP by giving them credit publicly, thanking them for
| their support ect.
| tomtheelder wrote:
| > Is this really useful though. They will always tell you
| what you want to hear, just like you say what they want to
| hear.
|
| 100% it's useful.
|
| First, not everyone is going to just tell you what you want
| to hear. I for one am entirely transparent in interviews,
| often criticizing the org. Hiring someone who doesn't like
| the culture is an absolute disaster.
|
| Second, you should ask the same question to every person
| that interviews you. If you get a bunch of different
| answers you're probably getting bullshitted, or they just
| don't have a consistent answer across the org for what you
| are asking. That's valuable info either way.
|
| Third, ask questions that don't have a "right" answer. If
| you ask "do people who work here care about the mission?"
| you're going to get a yes every time. If you ask "what
| would you say is the biggest source of motivation for you
| and your team?" you'll get lots of varied answers. I know
| because I've asked that question and gotten countless
| different ones.
|
| For the leadership/management question they have no way to
| know what answer you are looking for when you ask about the
| management philosophy. If they give a nothing answer like
| "we try not to micromanage" then you push. You'll either
| find out what it is or you'll find out that the people you
| are asking don't know, which suggests that there isn't one.
| sdoering wrote:
| A lot of orgs don't control their promotion cycle.
|
| Imagine a local unit with the budget given for promotions
| from global is announced after the yearly promotion
| discussions of all team leaders happened.
|
| So they had to come up with some form of ranking so that the
| cut off can be made based on the available budget.
|
| So even if 15 people had done all that their team leads said
| would be necessary for a promotion the decision hinges on
| some internal ranking as well as a globally decided budget.
| correstco wrote:
| This is oddly specific. Perhaps to your company or industry.
|
| But is in no way a standard across companies.
|
| Sounds horrific to be honest. Having to BS employees on the
| fly?
| candiddevmike wrote:
| You're spot on. The only way to "win" as a manager is by being
| a sycophant to the director or VP above you. Loyalty is how you
| get promoted. So your job is to make sure your boss or their
| boss is never wrong, even when they really, really are.
| rockinghigh wrote:
| As a first-level manager you're not in control of compensation
| policies but you can certainly impact promotions in many ways.
| I have had many managers who were honest about the lack of
| promotion or a bigger bonus.
| Kototama wrote:
| Oh no, it has a whole section on enneagram, which is pseudo-
| science.
| catach wrote:
| They do preface with:
|
| "It is not an exact science. It is not there to pigeonhole
| people or to be an excuse for bad behavior. It is just a useful
| framework for understanding yourself and others a little
| better. And the better you understand someone, the better you
| can work together."
| ms4720 wrote:
| I get an unexpected error, seems about right
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| Doesn't that mean it's an expected error?
| thenerdhead wrote:
| I went through half of it. I think it has promise, but not really
| sure I would call it a handbook. Some things are just strange to
| me:
|
| > A senior employee comes to you with a competitive offer in
| hand, asking for a promotion. You investigate the situation and
| decide that, since you really don't want to lose this employee,
| you will cave and give them a promotion.
|
| > You have just created a strong incentive for political
| behavior.
|
| Hard disagree. People look for more responsibility / jobs all the
| time and when they come to you saying they want to stay and this
| is their condition, you better honor it and not call it
| "politics". They don't have to do that at all and now you're back
| to hiring or backfilling.
|
| This is also literally the opposite of the highlights saying:
|
| > Attract, nurture, coach, and retain talent.
|
| > Keep an eye on your team's health and happiness.
|
| > Give your team a clear path to progress in their careers.
|
| Also this section on remote work is so out of touch:
|
| > Always have your camera on for meetings and touchpoints. Please
| ask others to do so as well. This is non-negotiable. There should
| be no state in which you are working where your camera can't be
| turned on. If you look like ass, own the fact that you look like
| ass and understand that at some point the people you are talking
| to will look like ass too. If you don't want to turn the camera
| on because you are sitting in bed and it's all messed up, then
| get out of the bed and go sit at a table or something. This isn't
| rocket science. Be 100% of yourself at all times, but be
| professional.
|
| An executive definitely wrote this. I bet they don't show their
| face to every call they take. The pandemic has made this normal,
| but prior to it I think this would be challenged. I don't need to
| see your face to work with you. Sure let's do it often, but not
| 24/7.
|
| > The terms "management" and "leadership" are often used
| interchangeably, but they are actually two distinct things. In
| short, management is tactical and leadership is strategic.
|
| This attitude I think harms the merit of what management really
| is. Management is a noble profession that people think is
| separate from leadership. They are the same regardless of what
| you think. I think Clayton Christensen said it best:
|
| > "I used to think that if you cared for other people, you need
| to study sociology or something like it. But....I [have]
| concluded, if you want to help other people, be a manager. If
| done well, management is among the most noble of professions. You
| are in a position where you have eight or ten hours every day
| from every person who works for you. You have the opportunity to
| frame each person's work so that, at the end of every day, your
| employees will go home feeling like Diana felt on her good day:
| living a life filled with motivators."
|
| I would overall call this a generic self-help guide for someone
| who happens to be a manager. It literally includes word for word
| ideas in the most random places like GTD, stoicism, and even a
| section on sales?
| fernandotakai wrote:
| >The pandemic has made this normal, but prior to it I think
| this would be challenged. I don't need to see your face to work
| with you. Sure let's do it often, but not 24/7.
|
| my rules, since i started working remotely (so ~10y ago)
| regarding cameras are: on if the meeting has less than 10
| people. on at the beginning from 10 to 20~30. after that
| number, off (since it doesn't matter anymore).
|
| that means that for team and project meetings, my camera is
| always on. for dept meetings, it's on at the beginning because
| i want people to know i'm around and paying attention (usually
| i turn it off after the meeting starts properly). and for
| company wide meetings, it's off because there are so many
| people that it doesn't really matter if the CEO can see me or
| ont.
| ithkuil wrote:
| Every time I quit it was because I wanted to quit and when
| asked from my employer what would have taken to change my mind
| I couldn't find anything realistic they could offer me to stay.
| But that's because in my cases compensation wasn't the main
| motivation for desiring to leave.
|
| I can totally imagine a different scenario where people who are
| clearly underpaid must follow a different strategy. It all
| boils down to a) does the employer underpay the employee b)
| does the employer understand how much the employee feels
| sincerely underpaid?
|
| Point (b) is an important nitpick because often employers and
| employees have radically different measures of what is "right",
| in particular when you throw in rules about location-based
| compensation.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| When you're an employee, it feels like your manager's job is to
| keep you happy and give you what you want.
|
| When you first get into management, you immediately realize
| that your job is to serve _an entire team_ in ways that will
| some times not make individuals happy. You have to focus on
| doing what's best for the team, not just giving the loudest
| team member what they demand.
|
| > Hard disagree. People look for more responsibility / jobs all
| the time and when they come to you saying they want to stay and
| this is their condition, you better honor it and not call it
| "politics".
|
| If the person is deserving of the promotion then withholding it
| _just because_ is silly. But in the real world that doesn't
| really happen. What manager would actively withhold something
| that would motivate their team? Remember, managers don't get
| compensated and promoted for keeping their team members
| miserable and depriving them of what they want. We get
| compensated and promoted based on getting the job done.
|
| The problem in these scenarios is that you can't start trading
| promotions as leverage. You need to give out promotions _as
| earned_ according to the criteria spelled out to the team.
|
| If you start giving out promotions to people who seek competing
| job offers, you're telling the team that the promotion path is
| not based on merit or performance, but rather on your ability
| to hold your manager over a barrel with threats of quitting.
|
| Reward this once and you'll start seeing much of the team
| threaten to quit whenever they want something. Motivation will
| fall as employees realize that their best option to get ahead
| of their peers is not to work hard, but to threaten to quit.
| Resentment will grow as team members learn that their peer was
| promoted for getting competing job offers, not for doing good
| work. That's the definition of politics.
|
| Of course, you need to have a valid promotion structure and
| criteria in place and you need to honor it. But no, you should
| not get into the habit of giving employees whatever they want
| in response to threats to leave.
| tyre wrote:
| Declining a promotion that a manager doesn't feel is warranted
| does not conflict with providing a clear career path for team
| members.
|
| Promoting someone to staff engineer who doesn't meet the bar
| lowers the bar for a staff engineer at the company.
|
| Promoting based on a threat to leave communicates that one path
| forward is negotiation through counter-offers. Maybe that's the
| culture some company are after, I don't know.
|
| Management and leadership are distinct. There are people
| managers who don't lead their teams and senior ICs who do.
| [deleted]
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(page generated 2022-04-23 23:00 UTC)