Comment by chartpath | Hacker News Reader

Comment by chartpath | Hacker News Reader

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This resonates with me. Also in management with a similar style. However, I'd like to take a little tangent from there in case you'd want to elaborate on what it means to "get to know" people as part of the humanistic approach.

One of the ways that I've learned to practice respect is actually not really getting to know people personally too much. I've been manipulated before by "leaders" who try to use personal information like family needs or other goals as a fake carrot that is not in their power to exchange. As a result I have a pretty "no questions asked" policy on the privacy rights of my direct reports when it comes to approving any time off or facilitating whatever it is they want to do with their careers, and it doesn't require "getting to know them" beyond their own voluntary sharing in private. Sometimes it will grow into a closer relationship but it totally doesn't have to.

Maybe it's an extreme reaction to the bad taste from interacting with folks who like to pretend that work is a family. I just don't trust workplaces enough to be fully vulnerable anymore, and by extension would never demand that another employee be unconditionally trusting with their full humanity, because it is never a two-way street. When the company wants to mess with livelihoods it does not need to seek permission, so it is unfair to ask for the disclosure of personal information beyond what is necessary to carry out the work.

For just one more recent example, I fell for the advertised inclusive corporate culture by putting my pronouns on my Slack profile (having never been publicly out as a queer person at work before), I experienced weird behaviours from people that made it harder to do my job normally. So I ended up going back into the workplace closet because it's just easier to project what "regular" folks want to see in order to solve problems efficiently.

I'd love to hear your take on healthy boundaries, because sometimes I wish there could be more connection with people in the workplace besides the naturally occurring camaraderie that arises through direct collaboration and the inevitable small handful of friends with similar values. Is it possible to have a deeper connection with everyone as a general approach?

I never asked, but always listened, and respected whatever the employee wanted to share. I have personal (extracurricular) experience in an organization that has given me a particularly useful approach to sensitive life stuff. I also shared a lot of what I was going through (but not all). That's often a great way to "break the ice."

I saw my employees through a lot of life's challenges, like cancer, marriage, divorce, child issues, elder issues, whatever. I made sure that we could keep working as a team, even if it meant that one of the members may have had to opt out for a while.

I also withheld information from HR, that they would have liked to have had, because, quite frankly, it was none of their damn business. It did not always endear me to them. I kept secrets, and never used anything I learned to manipulate, but I did use it to optimize.

For example, I had one engineer that is "on the spectrum." He Just. Could. Not. Come. In. Before. Noon. to save his life, but often worked until 2AM.

Also, the code he wrote was nothing short of miraculous. He's possibly the best coder I've ever worked with.

HR wanted me to bully him into submission. I did not, and they were un-thrilled with me. But Japan loved him, and they held the upper hand.

It wasn't for everyone, but we made it work.

I feel that "one size fits all" solutions may be necessary for large organizations, but I had the luxury of managing a small team (never more than 10 people). Everyone involved was serious about the work, had pride in the company, and appreciated the leeway I gave them. My LI profile has a number of testimonials, and some are from former employees. To this day, we still keep in touch.

Because of the nature of the work we did, there was no way for "slackers" to hide. Everyone's work was just too visible.

As a manager, my #1 priority was always to represent what was best for the corporation. In some cases, that meant preventing the corporation from engaging in self-destructive behavior. Now, that is a classic "slippery slope," and it could have easily turned into self-will run riot, but it didn't; because I'm who I am.

Managers aren't cookies, and they can't be formed from cookie-cutters, no matter what the "HR Consultants" say.

Thanks! Great points about leading with some of our own vulnerability as a way to create psychological safety. Refusing bad direction to protect the team is always hard, because it carries the burden of articulating how that protection is better for the company as a whole, which means politics and either CYA records or face saving flattery that is somewhat degrading for the manager to have to do. You sound like a good person to work with.

> You sound like a good person to work with.

I did my best. I do tend to expect top-shelf results (as opposed to "effort"), though, which does not always win me fans (but the company I worked for, expected nothing less).

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