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Comment by ramraj07 | Hacker News Reader

There are two types of ideas, one is the practical improvement that can and should be heard and considered seriously, and then there are the “great ideas” which a lot of engineers are happy to spew out, but are often unable to follow through because they think more highly of themselves than they ought to. The reality is that software fields are brimming with people who’ve been paid exorbitant sums for mediocre work from people who wouldn’t otherwise even qualify as above average in general intelligence. If the teams don’t listen to engineers often it’s at least partly because of such past experiences.

A good company will be a place where the engineers who are capable of following through with great ideas are being listened to while the remainder are kept at their place so to speak.

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One of the drawbacks of managers who are not good engineers themselves is that they lack the ability and knowledge to distinguish between truly excellent talent and pretenders. That's an organisational deficiency.

For a decent take on that organizational deficiency, Rickover wrote a 1.5 page memo in 1953 addressing similar issues for the nuclear US Navy. At some point, it's a failing of process and structure rather than people. [1]

1: http://ecolo.org/documents/documents_in_english/Rickover.pdf

That's a great memo. Thank you for sharing it.

> A good company will be a place where the engineers who are capable of following through with great ideas are being listened to while the remainder are kept at their place so to speak.

That sounds reasonable on the surface, but it describes a situation that can't be reached unless the organization is willing to take risks and losses.

The way someone becomes an engineer that is capable of great ideas and the subsequent "follow through", is by failing. A lot. And then learning from the mistakes and doing better next time while developing the grit and confidence that's required for success. This requires an environment that tolerates trying new things and has enough slack so that it's OK to fail sometimes. This stuff CANNOT happen in places where everything is project-managed to the point where everyone has their nose held to a grindstone at all times and the word "accountability" is used as a threat.

Or they are unable to follow through because engineering is a team activity and so they cannot follow through if people don’t listen enough to consider the idea.

>then there are the “great ideas” which a lot of engineers are happy to spew out, but are often unable to follow through

I’ve heard this person referred to a “good idea fairy”…they come in, sprinkle their good idea dust and then expect the execution (aka the hard part) to be somebody else’s job.

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