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Comment by chasontherobot | Hacker News Reader

This article is about parenting, but I think it also applies to management. How often have you been dealing with a crisis at work when management is pressuring people to put in a solution, any solution and it ends up just making things worse or causing bigger issues down the line?

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One of the best pieces of advice I've received as a sysadmin was "Don't just do something, stand there!" :)

People want to treat the symptom rather than the underlying cause. It's easier but far less effective.

Sometimes we as parents, colleagues, and partners forget that people sometimes have reasons (even if ones we don't understand) for doing things that don't line up with our own. We think people ought to act like us—after all we are the most reasonable people we know. :)

I've found in both my parenting and my professional life that remembering to ask the question "Why are you doing X?" or "What led you to take action X...": "Whether "X" is a commit or a strange habit, or even a destructive action more often leads to productive discussion. Sometimes, the other person's perspective can be interesting and informative.

What's helped me cope with pressure from bosses was the realization that when they're shitting on someone, it's usually because their own boss is shitting on them (and on upwards). Then it's less personal, less an issue of someone in authority judging your performance, and becomes more of a team effort/problem: I will try to fix the issues, so that my boss's issue goes away, so his boss's issue goes away, and then we'll all be happy.

But a good manager is a shit umbrella, keeping the shit off you. I'm supportive of providing solutions so that everyone's lives improve, but one must be careful not to give the impression that the way to make the underlings perform is to let the shit roll downhill.

True, but I'm not saying it's a going thing to roll shit down... I'm saying that it would behoove people to realize that when their manager is angry, it's probably because their manager is angry at them. One can do with that insight what they will. Personally, it helps me cope with stressful situations, to realize I'm not the odd man out, and that everyone struggles to get it right.

I'm afraid you've misunderstood. I'm saying that when you see shit happening and do these things to make improvements, you [unwittingly] train the management stack that this is how they get improvements: by sending the shit downhill.

What's your proposal on how to handle the situation?

But most line managers and a lot of executive level managers have literally never had any training in management, so sometimes they're just copying bad behaviours from people above/around them, even when they were things they themselves hated before getting promoted.

A "I'm working as fast as I can. These interruptions are not helping. You can help get it sorted faster by keeping people off my back - I promise to update you as soon as I know anything" can be enough. Carry through, and give them enough to go back to their boss with to keep them away, and show them it actually lets you fix the problem, and thank them for helping afterwards, and they'll soon learn to prefer shielding you.

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