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Comment by Cyberdogs7 | Hacker News Reader

I am a lazy manager then. The problem is context. I ask all my engineers to self track accomplishments for several reasons:

1. It puts them in control. If they want to leave the team, they have a handy list to hand to their new manager right away.

2. They can capture details I would miss, no matter how close to the work I am. They will capture exact why that design process was hard and what it was like dealing with those 4 external teams.

3. It improves their writing and communication skills. I spend my 1:1's going through the accomplishments and working with them on how to expand and add context to items, where to add detail, and how to be concise with the results.

So far, I receive positive feedback on this. On the flipside, I don't do this for myself :)

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So, is a manager in this context really needed?

I'm in control, I need to make my case towards a new manager and team if I want to move (basically a new interview process), and try to improve on communication and writing even though +80% (number pulled out of empirical personal experience. YMMV) of my peers want to focus on work and be happy and introvert.

You have your context, your manager has everyone's context. They cannot understand the details of everything, but you cannot make strategic decisions (budgeting, staffing, which projects to do at all) because you don't have the overall picture and the input frim everyone else.

The moment I start dealing with other teams/depts, I almost certainly have more context about most things than the manager "managing" me. You end up asking other folks "why X? why Y?" and get their perspective in their terms, and incorporate that in to however you're getting your stuff done.

The only thing "managers" have access to is info they choose not to share, or info they're told not to share, which creates an explicit vaccuum/silo of info, and increases the power imbalance. Most of the teams I've worked on have been this way. Yeah, sure... I don't have "the big picture" you created on a corp retreat with other dept managers... but why don't I have it? Because you've chosen to only share bits and pieces... "for your own good". Makes very little sense to me.

If I know you're planning on doing "functionality A" at some point, inform us now, because that very likely has an impact on decisions I'm making today. I'm far more likely to understand the impact on my own work and my team's work than you are, given that you don't actually know how to do the work (in most cases).

I've had a couple good manager-types over the years, but only a couple.

Your view is ridiculously myopic.

The point is not about who strictly has access to the information, it's about whose job it is to deal with it. If you started dealing with other departments asking for information and perspectives, you'd have much less time left to actually do your tasks, and you'd run into cases where they will be very reluctant or slow to give you the information because compiling it takes time and they'd rather focus on their own tasks. Or simply because they don't like you - "people problems" are also something managers have to deal with.

And it's not about "if you're planning to do something at some point, inform us now" - if the plans are concrete enough to tell you, you'll be told, and if your input is needed you will be asked, but it makes no sense if the plans still need input from 3 other departments and may change according to that or be cancelled entirely.

It's a division of labor, plain and simple. Managers have to deal with a huge amount of small tasks that involve waiting for responses from other people and acting on incomplete information. It's not easy, and you'd probably hate it if you actually tried to do it, but it's necessary for an organization to actually achieve things.

No. Management is not needed in this context. Maybe for coaching/removing low performers.

I'm surprised everyone is roasting you for this. I personally don't want my manager breathing down my neck and monitoring everything I do. I'm paid well and given a lot of freedom at work, the "obligation" of spending 30 seconds every week to make a note of something cool I did so that I can tell it to the people who pay me seems pretty reasonable.

I read it as discourse related to a binary proposal without any nuance. The root being "Whose responsibility is it to keep track of accomplishments: The Manager or the Individual?"

I rarely comment on things and I am now being reminded why. I think people are also making the wrong assumption that it's an obligation. It's a recommendation I make to engineers. It just so happens they all see the value and do it. Once a quarter or so they get excited to review it with me and we use that moment to have candid discussions around career/role progress and start looking at trends for performance review or timelines for promotion.

>I am a lazy manager then.

And a very incompetent one. While there is some value in what you said i.e Engineers tracking their progress and what they did. This often results in bragging. The most competent people are generally not the best braggers. The best braggers often make a career out of it.

If I run a company and i had a manager like you, I would fire you. I really mean it.

You should review the HN guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Whatever your opinion is, it was not worded in a productive way.

1. So, if they do not plan to leave the team they can skip it?

2. Why do you need this details? Why you did not recieve this details in the firts place?

3. As any other writing. If you believe that this skills should be improved then why not use some training? And again, if person writing skills is already good then its ok to skip it then?

> So far, I receive positive feedback on this.

Positive honest feedback from subordinate? Did you provide any alternative they can choose?

1. Yes, people can skip it. I can never force someone to do this and it's typically something only career driven engineers want to participate. I do have an 80% volunteer participation rate in my current team.

2. I need the details because I don't look over the shoulders of my engineers. I always evaluate the end product and provide support when asked. But if a design doc required an engineer to go escalate and issue with another teams director, how would I know that? Anytime they show initiative, by definition it would be without my knowledge.

3. This part of the training.

For the positive feedback, I am the highest rated manager for manage satisfaction in my org of 400 engineers. This is from anonymous survey results. This has been consistent through my past 4 companies, including multiple FANNGs.

You could do the work and allow them to supplement what you've noted down.

Not a manager and not the person you are replying to, but I kind of get their perspective, as I see it somewhat similar to how I treat referral/recommendation letters.

If someone I closely know asks me for a recommendation letter, and they are a person who (in my eyes) deserves a great letter, I just tell them the format for the specific letter (e.g., 2 paragraphs, less than 300 words, what type of content the letter is supposed to contain, etc), and ask them to write it themselves. Then I take it, review to make sure all is good, go over it with the person (in case there are any potential suggestions for improvements [based on my knowledge of them] or parts that i find questionable), edit if necessary with them, and then submit it.

Now that I am looking at it, that's a very similar process to how performance review historically went with my managers.

Part of the context of referral letters is you’re usually doing them a favor, not your job.

The manager is also doing you a favor by letting you express yourself to what you believe your strong points during the review cycle were, going over them with you, and helping you come up with ways of writing it that would result in your desired outcome. As opposed to the performance review process (which i've seen before), where the manager takes no input from you, compiles your pull requests/design docs/etc, provides zero context for your work to the higher ups, then "ships it", and you only get to go over the final outcome with them. The latter also counts as "doing your job" just as fine.

What I am trying to say is, just like with referral/recommendation letters, there is a large degree of how much the manager cares about your performance review, how much voice they want to give you in this, how much support and assistance they are willing to provide you, and how much work they decide to put into it on their end.

A wise manager knows that they cannot possibly know your work as well as you do. So they want to work with you on bridging that potential gap between the outer visibility/importance of your work and the true value/effort involved in it.

I really don’t have anything against managers having reports write their reviews. I’m just pointing out there’s a fundamental difference between that and a referral letter, specifically on the “doing your job for you” bit people were talking about.

Saying the manager is also doing you a favor is twisting the words a bit. Sure, you can make the point that it’s nice and it benefits you. But it is a routine part of their current job. Lots of cover letters, maybe most, are being asked outside of this context. Maybe the most obvious difference is it’s within your discretion to decide to not give someone a referral. Not really the same with a performance review.

These differences makes an “okay, but write it yourself” situation fundamentally different.

My manager does this for me and I adore him for it. I can just talk about myself with normal human words and he'll come back with it all written up in business-speak.

I very much could, but again, I am a lazy manager. Not even trying to convey sarcasm there.

I do believe them doing the work is important to point 1., putting them in-control. The most important part of my job is setting them up to succeed. If they require their manager to always positively advocate for them, they are leaving their careers up to change. Not all managers are looking out for their directs, so teaching people to look out for themselves is important to me.

Your job is to know who is creating value to the company. If the company comes to you and says "Tough times. Need to axe one person. Who is it?" are you going to ask your team?

Your job is to know how the team functions together. What are the skills of your team, who is better at what, who gets on with who, etc. You going to ask them each to write that down too?

I get the value of having them also do it for themselves, but if they write down total bullshit are you going to spot it? Seen that happen. Or if they miss things that you thought were valuable and they didn't? Are you planning on just remembering it six months later?

>I am a lazy manager

You will do well in corporate America or higher education, apparently.

I think people are making many assumptions about my overall management style based on my process for a very small aspect of the job.

While I joke about being a lazy manager, I do not agree I am uninformed.

I have ~20 hours of 1:1s per week. I take detailed notes of every single one (transparently, as I share my notes with the person I am doing 1:1's with).

Because I am talking with everyone across the org, constantly, I am getting a constant stream of data on accomplishments, struggles, motivations, working relationships, and performance. I can instantly name my top and bottom performers, by level, and go into detail on why they have that rating.

The accomplishment tracking that I have engineers do is more of an internal resume. It could even prove to be an external resume.

> I am a lazy manager then

Indeed. From the sounds of that it sounds like you don't have the full picture at all.

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