[HN Gopher] AI makes bad managers
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AI makes bad managers
Author : zdw
Score : 59 points
Date : 2025-05-26 17:09 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (staysaasy.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (staysaasy.com)
| somesortofthing wrote:
| Generating reports that are rarely read and almost always ignored
| seems like a great use case for AI. Performance reviewing is de
| facto zero-sum - once you've ranked the people in your bailiwick,
| there's no reason not to let the incentives you're subject to do
| the rest of the work.
| palmotea wrote:
| But if _all_ managers become bad due to AI, then there 's no
| problem. It's just a new AI-inclusive normal.
| lyu07282 wrote:
| > Great managers improvise on feedback the way a jazz soloist
| riffs on a theme - always on, always smooth. That fluency only
| comes from thousands of hours of uncomfortable reps: hard
| conversations, careful wordsmithing, and the stress of getting it
| right.
|
| This has to be satire right? PMC sniffing their own farts
| intellectronica wrote:
| I usually really love Sassy's writing, but this time it's the
| usual AI-shy nonsense.
|
| It's possible for good managers to do much better management work
| with the aid of AI (saying from first-hand experience).
|
| AI does not make mediocre managers good or bad managers mediocre.
|
| Today's best managers are putting a lot of thought and
| experimentation into making AI a powerful tool for being even
| better managers. Others ... cope.
| lazide wrote:
| Honestly - huh? Got some examples?
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| ok, so we got a problem - after the AI allows us to get rid of
| the programmers what happens if it comes for us?! Hmm, let's
| write some articles to help convince people AI can't replace us.
| Good idea, let me just prompt ChatGPT...
| to11mtm wrote:
| In my experience, AI just makes bad managers more obvious...
|
| The _best_ a bad (or worse, toxic [0]) manager can help for, is
| that AI will help them look like less of an idiot.
|
| The nominal I have seen however, is managers providing non
| actionable, non provable feedback. In these cases you'll see
| conflicting feedback (while not providing enough detail to
| understand if this is a real thing or an AI hallucination),
| such as 'You are not afraid to interject important points in
| meetings -> You need to not take people off topic on meetings',
| or for a team where every IC always meets deadlines agreed to
| every sprint planning, 'You are working too slow'.
|
| In the worst case, you've got the folks who _enjoyed_ ChatGPT
| 's especially sycophantic phase and wind up buying into all
| sorts of dumb shit because the computer told them it was a good
| idea...
|
| [0] - As an example of toxic, consider the sort of manager that
| uses near-circular logic like 'you need a doctors note for a
| sick day -> oh you were good enough to drive to the doctor then
| we need you in here' and then wonders why half the team gets
| sick over the next few days.
| jredwards wrote:
| Counterpoint: if you think being a good manager boils down to
| writing a really great performance assessment, you already suck
| at your job.
| regularjack wrote:
| They didn't say it boils down to that, they say it's an
| important part, and I agree.
| NAHWheatCracker wrote:
| I hated performance reviews. My manager would always keep stuff
| vague. He tried to protect people and he didn't really observe my
| work. His feedback was based mostly on emails asking people what
| I'm good and bad at.
|
| Every three months for 5 years, he would send me some blurb that
| basically said "NAHWheatCracker is a great engineer. Sometimes
| he's difficult to work with." We would have a one-on-one to
| review the performance review. I would ask about the "difficult
| to work with" part.
|
| My manager wouldn't say who said what. He wouldn't discuss
| circumstances. He wouldn't facilitate having a discussion with
| whomever for specifics. It could be an issue that came up once, a
| chronic problem, or a minor complaint on a bad day.
|
| I wanted something specific to improve on. It wasn't hard to make
| assumptions, but assumptions aren't clear. Non-clarity drives
| greater wedges between people. I shut down in conversations lest
| someone say something to my manager.
|
| The idea of it being made more dehumanizing by having an AI slop
| out a performance review seems even more depressing. That said, I
| think bad managers will ruin this process regardless of AI. You
| can't get much worse than being less than useless.
| danenania wrote:
| Management involves a lot of difficult tradeoffs, and this is
| one of them. Asking for feedback privately creates the feeling
| of "people talking behind your back" that can erode trust. But
| if you instead try to have full transparency and facilitate
| direct/open feedback, you can either have open
| conflicts/retaliation or (more likely), people hold back and
| don't give honest feedback, causing problems and resentments to
| never be addressed.
| icedchai wrote:
| In over 25 years of working, I've never had a useful
| performance review. If more people pushed back on them, perhaps
| it would stop.
| codr7 wrote:
| Me neither, 27 years and counting.
|
| It's not what's said either, it's the whole idea of someone
| turning my performance into a silly numbers game.
|
| I'm pretty sure performance reviews were invented for much
| the same reasons as democracy; but instead of the illusion of
| a choice you get the illusion of progress.
| haiku2077 wrote:
| My team has pretty much admitted to each other we're using AI
| to write reviews so we can get back to real work
| whatnow37373 wrote:
| I am not going to analyze my peers' abilities for my manager.
| That is literally his F job. It creates unnecessary tensions
| and again, his job.
|
| Why do so many people roll along with this?
|
| I see engineers often bad-mouthing each other. Why do it for
| the managerial class? Surely you realize they are herding us
| like cattle.
|
| Just do your job. Nothing more, nothing less.
| zoechi wrote:
| Almost all managers I had to interact with in about 4 dacades
| were exceptionally bad. AI can only be an improvement.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| "'Forbidden' AI Technique" (Computerphile)
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xx4Tpsk_fnM
|
| The TLDR version is most models eventually adapt to lie to
| users and unit tests. =3
| tough wrote:
| Claude 4 loves to -fix the tests- by making the test pass
| instead of fixing the bug
|
| ymmv
| codr7 wrote:
| Likewise; I actually enjoy writing code, and I'm pretty damn
| good at it; but I will rather take the role as manager myself
| than write code for most managers I've come into contact with.
|
| Many workplace issues can be solved, a shitty manager is a
| total dead end.
| UltraLutra wrote:
| It's cute they think managers are evaluated on the quality of
| their employee performance review.
|
| I don't disagree with the content. A well-thought review will
| help employees perform better. AI can't create a good performance
| review from whole cloth. You have to at least put some thought
| into the content and bullet out what you want the review to say.
| An AI could clean up the language, but not create good content.
|
| But most managers' managers would consider that wasted effort.
| The unspoken fact is that performance reviews are pretty
| arbitrary and end up reflecting whatever is needed at the time.
| If budgets are tight, performance suddenly becomes less
| impressive and no one deserves a promotion. If hiring is
| difficult and an employee expresses dissatisfaction with their
| pay then suddenly they're a star performer. The efficient manager
| tells the AI "make this a good review that makes a case for
| promotion" or "make this a mediocre review with room for
| improvement" and lets the AI write something vague and unhelpful
| that agrees with the result they want. An _effective_ manager
| will put time into their reviews and growing talent. Managers
| aren't incentivized to be effective leaders though.
|
| Source: my experience; your mileage may vary.
| bicx wrote:
| I spent a while in management, and what I learned about the
| review process was pretty eye-opening. Basically everyone was
| graded on the curve, and you couldn't afford to have too many
| "exceeds expectations" ratings. That would mean they probably
| met expectations above their role, and they could make a strong
| case for promotion. If you can't give out lots of promotions,
| then the top performers get pissed. So, just don't let them all
| know how great they're doing.
|
| Performance reviews are a dumb system, and you shouldn't be
| learning anything new from them anyway. Just give helpful
| feedback throughout the year, and give promotions to people
| strategically as you're able.
| moret1979 wrote:
| > AI Makes Bad Managers
|
| So, a replacement success story?
| ford wrote:
| This sounds like specific instance of what I think most people
| believe about AI: It's good for tedious or well-scoped tasks, but
| shouldn't handle things that are core to your job.
|
| I think students see this (use AI as a friend/tutor, but don't
| use it to do your entire HW), and software engineers see this
| (use AI to refactor or handle small tasks, but don't use it to
| design your whole system, or for abstractions that need to be
| carefully designed)
|
| (Many comments here are about if performance management is core
| to a manager's job - which for the record I think it is)
| conception wrote:
| Protip for any managers: if your employees have to wait for a
| performance review to know how they are doing, you're managing
| them poorly.
|
| Employees: if you don't know how you're doing at your job, your
| manager isn't managing you well.
|
| All performance reviews should be good/positive unless you are
| looking to fire the employee sooner than putting them on a PIP.
| Because employees should always know what they need to work on,
| if anything.
|
| Management Basics 101.
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