Hacker News Reader

Comment by abeppu | Hacker News Reader

I think there's also an issue that execs can create the appearance of being busy (and may indeed spend a ridiculous number of hours in meetings) but it can be hard to see if they're contributing anything valuable. I was at a startup which over a period of years repeatedly had new execs come in, claim that something was wrong with our planning or goal-setting process, "restart" the whole thing in a way which was virtually identical except with new exemplar docs, tracking spreadsheets, meetings etc -- and then pat themselves on the back. So far as I can tell, this is only because creating the appearance of change allows them to take credit for any later success. I asked one once what they found problematic about our prior process, and the answer was roughly "I don't know about your prior process so I cannot comment."

View on HN

I worked at a place where they had an entire division of people basically filled the role of Tom Smykowski from Office Space.

It was both pitiful and amazing. They didn’t really produce any valuable output, but by scheduling meetings and debriefings and briefings, etc they were able to engage at high levels. The dude in charge somehow took over project managers, and they literally started building these colored briefing binders inspired by some History channel documentary the featured the President’s daily briefing by the CIA.

At the end, I started losing talented engineers to folks getting significant promotions to attend meetings with bigshots. The rationale was that in order to deliver the “CIA briefing” to the VP of Custodial Services, you had to be a Director or something.

That failure mode is not isolated to tech, and predates modern org structures too. See Chesterton’s Fence (https://simple.industries/notes/chesterton's-fence.html).

Unborked link: https://simple.industries/notes/chesterton's-fence.html

Looks like the single quote doesn't play nicely with the auto-linker.

"It can be hard to see if they're contributing anything valuable"

Indeed. It's easier to evaluate "the appearance of change" than actual value or improvement.

When I consider this problem, my current belief is that only long-term discipline from senior leadership can change this system.

Things that management knows about and worries about consistently, like 5 years and still going strong, do trickle down and make a difference, and eventually build a culture. Things that management changes every year end up making even the most good-hearted employees get cynical and uninvolved in those things.

I was thinking about all this recently and came up with the question:

In the event that someone fails, is it possible for it to be you?

There are people who cannot fail at their jobs. I want one of those jobs. An upper manager who attends meetings and "makes decisions" and is personal friends with the CEO often cannot fail. If the product stops selling, it will be considered a failure of those below the upper manager and the team will be laid off, the upper manager cannot fail.

A friend recently took a job in a company with more managers than employees. Example: one department has a VP managing a director managing 2 reports. One of the reports has more experience than the VP and director (combined.) The VP has no other reports. It's truly absurd.

In a properly functioning organization, a leader takes responsibility for the everything that happens on their watch, not just the successes but the failures as well. Even if an underling actually did something to cause a failure, the supervisor put them in the position where they could cause failure, kept them there, and failed to put into place the precautions to prevent that failure. Obviously many organizations don't work like this, but for success-motivated people it is very draining to work in such an environment, especially for long enough to get to the high levels where you could potentially benefit from its dysfunction.

It's always a good sign when an exec comes in and lists things that are working well at the moment.

This is how you do high quality skip levels:

1. What is going well?

2. What is not going well?

3. What can be done to improve?

Pretty much know what's going on. Anyone who BSes the second question needs to be layered or leave.

Speaking truth to power is rarely easy. Some leaders can take genuine feedback others cannot. Until you have a good pulse on the situation, is it really surprising most people default to inauthentic critiques?

This is why I'm very skeptical on the use of 1-on-1 meetings with management as a means to keep a finger on what's going well or badly in an organization.

If someone is OK with telling management things they don't want to hear, they'll tell management those things regardless of 1-on-1s.

They can’t be done in an in-demand or ad-hoc manner. They need to be consistent over time.

If they aren't consistent then it devolves into what you're saying.

But if you have a relationship with management then you can build a sense of trust based on the contents of that relationship.

Isn't the problem there that management has things they don't want to hear?

Like the whole premise of a skip level is the management hearing more things.

Isn't the necessity of skip meetings itself a pathological sign? The only thing you legitimately need to talk to your manager's manager about is things your manager can't handle -- i.e. mostly problems with and/or praise for your manager. Everything else should go through your manager, or what are they there for?

Depends on the org and the situation. Sometimes the guy a level up has a broader perspective.

Like anything, ymmv. If it’s setup as a way to rat out your boss in a deep org, that’s stupid. If it’s a way for the director to establish relationships with some of the ICs, that can be productive.

How do you know that your direct reports are doing their jobs well if you never talk with the people they're managing? Just take their word for it?

"Yes boss, all my subordinates are happy and think I'm doing a stellar job at managing this team."

When communicating through a middleman you always lose information or it gets distorted. There is definitely value in talking to upper levels directly.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com