Employee_README.md:
I don't need a manager. Just tell me what you want and I'll make it for you without anyone messing up with my productivity. Thank you!
I don't need a manager. Just tell me what you want and I'll make it for you without anyone messing up with my productivity. Thank you!
If I tell you what the company goals are and our teams goals, and then ask you how you can use your unique talents to help us achieve those goals, you'll be much more engaged in the work, and also have a greater understanding of how your work fits into the rest of what your team and your company is doing.
Context, not control.
The problem he encounters is when that doesn't work out because no group is perfect, and frankly we're probably not ready to manage ourselves quite yet.
But I think you're onto something here, and I also think every one of the managers who wrote READMEs in this submission would agree with you. From a logistical standpoint, someone has to attend all those meetings with other teams, with the leaders of the company to hear what they're thinking and translate it for the rest of the engineers, and make sure the boring stuff like vacation time, sick leave, etc. are being looked after.
It's not really about being in charge/calling shots, it's about taking a group of talented and smart people, and making sure they're getting the info they need to keep build cool stuff.
I believe, admittedly based only on personal experience and anecdotal evidence, that this attitude is shared by a vanishingly small minority of managers, at least in practice.
Even the manager you mentioned referenced "the only way he can move upward" which implies even he ultimately wants to be in charge or call the shots in some hierarchical system, or am I reading too much into it?