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Comment by ChrisMarshallNY | Hacker News Reader

This is one of those "It depends" things. My experience, these days, is that people want one-size-fits-all "solutions," and have no patience for "It depends."

This is perfect for churches, and spiritual fellowships. Might not work as well, for military, or sales.

That said, I was a manager for 25 years, and considered the well-being of my team, my #2 priority (#1 was always keeping the company's interests in mind). My own well-being was #3.

But mentioning that, tends to draw real scorn, from today's tech folks. Not exactly sure what it is, they want from managers.

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The military does teach servant leadership (or at least the Marines does). The Marine Corps leadership principles:

Know your people: Observe how Marines react to different situations and look out for their welfare

Keep your personnel informed: Provide reasons for tasks and ensure Marines are aware of all relevant information

Set the example: Demonstrate professional competence, courage, and integrity

Ensure tasks are understood, supervised, and accomplished: Give clear, concise orders that are difficult to misunderstand

Explain why tasks must be done: Provide a plan for accomplishing tasks whenever possible

Be alert to rumors: Replace rumors with the truth to stop them from spreading

Build morale: Publicize information about unit successes to build morale and esprit de corps

Make sound and timely decisions: Be able to quickly assess a situation and make a sound decision based on that assessment

Consider advice from subordinates: When possible, consider the advice and suggestions of subordinates before making decisions

Announce decisions in time: Announce decisions early enough to allow subordinates to make necessary plans

I think in general you can be competitive and tactical while centering yourself around small group welfare. It's basically an acknowledgement that you and everyone else are only as good as the group and the leader is most well positioned to affect that welfare on a daily basis.

Thanks! I appreciate the input!

(These principles alone would bring success to any organization I'd think ...

Particularly the emphasis on clarity, brevity ... the attention to (and avoidance of) rumors ...

> #1 was always keeping the company's interests in mind

While I understand your intent on saying this, I think the reaction you get is because that is essentially a Sycophant which historically for the past known duration of human history has thrown vulnerable people under the bus in order to make the powerful more powerful.

I think what you probably want to say is that as a manager you should balance the 3. If you have to sacrifice the wellbeing of your employees or yourself for the company, well maybe the company isn't worth it. Also your employees probably don't like knowing you are making sacrifices for them instead of setting boundaries for yourself in order to take care of yourself. Nobody likes a martyr.

Especially in the tech world were theoretically you can leave a job and find a new one that doesn't conflict with this balance.

The general view in 2024 at least in my circles is to establish boundaries, find balance. Not blindly make the company your "#1 priority" in every decision.

Eh. Whatevs. That was not the case. I won't really get into it, but I draw my personal experience from many unusual places, and I have found that I have been able to blend them into all of my activities.

These days, I'm retired, and generally working on projects with a more humble scope, but still quite important, to a number of folks.

OK, I am agreeing with you that in practice you probably didn't follow these priorities. Your original complaint was "But mentioning that, tends to draw real scorn, from today's tech folks. Not exactly sure what it is, they want from managers."

You were looking for clarification about how the way you expressed your views were met with a negative reaction. I am agreeing with you.

So it is a problem how you frame priorities in the past when you did work. Not that when you worked you did something wrong. Today's workforce has a different vocab and a person needs to learn why the conversation changed if you want to communicate effectively and not get negative reactions.

Probably. My experience, hereabouts, is that there's a number of folks that automatically despise me, simply because I'm old, and will usually interpret whatever I write, in the nastiest possible way, so it doesn't really matter what I say. Someone will imply pretty abhorrent motives to it.

I'm a pretty decent person, and the folks that know me, know that quite well. I'm not trying to get a job, and I already know that I won't impress people, here, so I guess it doesn't matter.

That sucks to hear. Sorry about that.

> it doesn't really matter what I say. Someone will imply pretty abhorrent motives to it.

Just a bit of feedback though. You wrote a complaint that was affecting you and you didn't understand. I took time out and wrote a thoughtful reply and your response was:

> Eh. Whatevs.

Being immediately dismissive to someone trying to help you is a good way to make people not like you and react negatively to what you are trying to say.

Communication is a two way street. If you want respect you have to show some. Its an outdated view that respect comes with age.

Hope you have a great day and enjoy your retirement.

That is a good point, and you have my sincere apologies.

The way I interpret "#1 Company, #2 Team, #3 Me" is that faced with a decision that benefits the company as a whole (i.e., all teams at the company) one that benefits only your team or you, you should favor the decision that benefits everyone.

For example, say your team has a huge hardware budget, and you notice another fledgling team that's working on something potentially more impactful to the company is struggling to get a decent budget. Ideally, you should transfer most or all of your budget over to them to benefit the company overall. (Mind you, I have never really seen this happen voluntarily, but again... we're talking about ideal/desirable behavior.)

It does not mean that if the company is acting in bad faith and is, for example, putting policies in place to force people to quit to save on severance or something, you go along with that and throw your team under the bus.

Numbers 1 and 2 are connected. If the company goes under, then the team loses their jobs. If the company constantly screws over the employees, they'll end up with lower talent candidates and higher turnover. There has to be a balance. This isn't unique to tech, but probably more obvious there due to the job market strength for so long.

I was just talking to a friend of mine, yesterday, who used to work for a mob outfit.

He said that mobsters are surprisingly good managers.

I guess if you manage folks that, by definition, don't like rules, and can kill you, if you piss them off too much, you need to have a balanced and clever approach.

That stands to reason ...

Gives a whole new meaning to the "M" in MBA :)

I'm not sure that ranking them makes sense.

Like, there are absolutely places I as a manager recognized a win/win/win (company/team/myself) by doing something other than what the company said to do, or to message differently than the company wanted me to.

Putting "the company's interests as #1" is a bit ambiguous. It could mean you are willing to do the things needed to save the company from itself, or it could mean that you'd uncritically do what you were told. Without context, it sounds like the latter.

Similarly, putting your own well being behind both of those sounds like a recipe for burnout. What I expect you probably mean is that you look to take on the unpleasant tasks for the team, the things that need doing but won't grow the individuals on the team, or are morale killers, or are just bitchwork to make leadership happy. But, again, ambiguous.

Well, I did it for 25 years, so I guess it lasted.

The ranking was really something I only used, when there seemed to be conflicts between the priorities. In my experience, that seldom happened.

> Might not work as well, for military

I can see how one could think this, but one of the most accomplished persons I know is an ex high level, special forces commander who swears by these principles, and practiced them with and toward his men while on active duty. He attributes his success - and, later success in business, must add - to being there for his men and ensuring their well-being and progress, much along these lines ...

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