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Comment by awakeasleep | Hacker News Reader

Many of these will come off as frustrating and manipulative.

When I, a manager, ask “what is the biggest obstacle facing you and how can i remove it,” I’m offloading the manager-level work of identifying blockers for my team on the individual.

And hey, that might work, your teammate might have an insight you’re missing. But then, if they do have that insight, you’ve volunteered to do a shitload of work for your team.

Thats is, in theory, good- but ive never had a manager that was willing to actually do the work when they asked the questions on this list. They'd squirm out of their offer, and try to rephrase it as something i could do. Leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

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>>When I, a manager, ask “what is the biggest obstacle facing you and how can i remove it,” I’m offloading the manager-level work of identifying blockers for my team on the individual.

That gets a bit circular. In my mind, "asking my team members" is THE number one method of "identifying blockers for my team". Think about it - if a manager didn't ask for input from their team members, and instead assumed they can identify blockers, on their own and in vacuum, how would we portray such a manager? :-)

>> ive never had a manager that was willing to actually do the work when they asked the questions on this list

That is indeed the crucial second part; works for anything though - whether it's "lessons learned" at the end of the project, or "requirements gathering" from the client/user-base, or "soliciting feedback" from team members - obtaining information is critical #1 step; only useful if you then action it.

Just because both effective and ineffective, willing and unwilling managers ask questions, doesn't make questions themselves bad. It does depend on the actual manager and the relationship they have with a team member.

So I'd say such questions are "necessary but not sufficient" criteria for managerial success, and having a list is similarly "useful but not sufficient" :)

I agree, not only these kinds of questions we should ask, but also we should have data and objective results. Adding data and caring about people personally make the best managers I've ever seen.

> Think about it - if a manager didn't ask for input from their team members, and instead assumed they can identify blockers, on their own and in vacuum, how would we portray such a manager?

A smart manager can also observe things, but on top of that, in a healthy atmosphere some employees will provide that feedback on their own. If subordinates trust that voicing their concerns will have positive, or at the very least non-negative impact on how they're seen, they'll tell you all about the blockers and the uncertainties.

>>in a healthy atmosphere some employees will provide that feedback on their own.

Absolutely; but again, such atmosphere does not come out of nowhere. It may get boot-strapped by the initial cycle of:

1. One-on-one meetings where team members are encouraged to bring up thoughts, concerns, ideas, etc.

2. Manager who reacts positively to such feedback; actions it (within the constraints of organization & reality); and communicates outcomes honestly

3. Faith & mutual trust are established and team members feel more comfortable bringing up feedback on their own.

At least in my experience, not everybody is willing to provide feedback of their own initiative to a new manager. You have to earn it...

I had a manager who did 1 on 1s and asked questions like these. If you told him a blocker he’d do whatever it took to unblock it. In turn I only told him I was stuck when I truly was, because I knew the work he’d put in if I brought it to him. Of course, he knew status of stuff I was working on that wasn’t blocking me.

He knew my wife and kids names, my hobbies, and even paid for dinner for my local bicycling club when we were training for a big event.

When he left the job completely changed. My job satisfaction plummeted with the new manager (who didn’t do 1 on 1s at all) and I left soon after.

Would love to have a manager-mentor like that. :)

>I’m offloading the manager-level work of identifying blockers for my team on the individual.

As I see it, the individual who is doing the work will always have more insight into the work than an external third party. They may not be able to put that insight into context or a coherent narrative but they have it. The worst managers I've had are ones who think they know the work when they don't because they no longer do it.

There is also a difference between identifying blockers and promising to remove them. Promises are dangerous and promises you aren't guaranteed to keep are lethal.

I can only imagine the horror of working in a team where obstacles are not communicated immediately and have to wait for such meetings. This screams in inefficiency and frustration. The job of the manager should be to implement a culture of open feedback and actively resolve obstacles as they come up. Most of these questions come straight out of the waterfall playbook.

> the horror of working in a team where obstacles are not communicated immediately and have to wait for such meetings

I think this depends on the type of obstacle.

If the obstacle is something like "I can't figure out which service my code is supposed to be reading its data from" then yes of course that should be resolved immediately.

On the other hand, if the obstacle is "I'm worried that team X might not meet their promise of giving us deliverable Y in 2 months, and I can't agree with project manager Z on an appropriate backup plan" then you can probably wait for a weekly meeting.

In my view, that only works for small obstacles in small teams. Larger obstacles and larger teams have complicated dynamics and trade offs. That means you need to think further ahead instead of focusing on the short term issues. Sometime people don't even realize the real blockers until forced to actively think about them.

What's the biggest obstacle, that's good information from your direct report. How can I remove it (or CAN I even remove it?), that's kind of up to you to figure out.

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