How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired
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The reason you fluff up feedback to your subordinates is because lower down the chain they tend to be insecure and don't yet have the experience to distinguish between actionable impartial feedback, and threats to their job security.
The reason you don't fluff feedback, or any information for that matter to your superiors, is described in basically every handbook on highly effective communication in organizations.
Well said!
Most organizations don’t practice “highly effective communication”. It’s often a nightmare riddled with politics and ego.
The "start polishing your resume" bit was quite explicit.
Sure, in an ideal world you wouldn't have to fluff it, but I'm guessing many of us aren't in that world.
Example: I like to point out shitty work processes (one needs a hobby). Anything with a few loops and some rework goes for me to start my first time right story. People take offense. No stop, you are not the process. You didn’t design it, you merely took part because we asked you to. Now stop and consider whether you think it is shitty and if so, what can we do? Can you do it? Do you need help? When? Organizationally, it’s a good riff. For me, it’s strange to do and see it help. It feels like delivering snake oil. (I rationalize this as delivering Lean in thirty minutes.)
My communication plan is facts >> options >> opinions >> advice. This way I help people mentally separate “what is” from whatever opinion I’m holding. This works for both verbal and written communication. It’s a coping strategy for being outlier direct.
It's a fact of life that people shut down when approached with evidence that refutes their world view or choices. It doesn't matter if it's your boss or grandparents.
I don't really agree with you. This is a basic quality of skilled leadership. You want people refuting your worldview with evidence! It lets you correct course and make things better.
Only insecure people shut down like this in my experience.
You're assuming that the subordinate's feedback is sufficiently important to the business. It might not be. It might also not be important to the business if subordinates leave b/c their feedback is disregarded. I can imagine plenty of scenarios where a leader could still succeed while not giving a crap about subordinate feedback. It depends on the goals and the dynamics of the business, the leader's experience, market conditions, labor environments, etc.
> The reason you don't fluff feedback, or any information for that matter to your superiors, is described in basically every handbook on highly effective communication in organizations.
You can argue in your exit interview that you were just following handbooks.
Me: “we aren’t giving enough guidance to new hires” Leader: “it’s not a priority for us since we are freezing hiring”
Perfectly good interaction, where you didn’t waste time sneakily phrasing things you think you know better than the leader. And you learned some valuable info about the org priorities as a result.
That's for the superior to evaluate impartially, and if the feedback was not important, feed that back to the subordinate. Are you suggesting that it is reasonable for superiors to shut down when faced with uninteresting feedback?
> You can argue in your exit interview that you were just following handbooks.
I believe you skipped over the following part of my comment;
> If you find yourself working under such people, don't bother giving feedback, start polishing your resume.
Maybe, but the title is "without getting fired" not "without being wrong damnit!". Unless you have a significant number of shares in the company you should care about your own employment and success over the success of the whatever function this person has oversight of.
> The reason you don't fluff feedback, or any information for that matter to your superiors, is described in basically every handbook on highly effective communication in organizations.
And that reason is...?
People lower down the chain are insecure because they could legitimately be let go at any time for any reason.
People higher up the chain are insecure because any loss of face is debilitating. Especially having failings pointed out by someone "below" them.
I’d advise against going in the first one throwing punches.
Go with actionable feedback and be honest about what it is and what is not something you can solve. From there, if you genuinely care about whatever you’re complaning, you are more likely to be taken seriously.
I’d advise against going in any one throwing punches. Instead, give actionable, honest, factual feedback with the intent to legitimately help the other person.
Sometimes you need to a bit more assertive and blunt so that you become the top of the agenda, that’s what I meant by “throwing punches”.
Perhaps it means a much more over the top attitude in your view? (Happy to be corrected here)
Not all organizations will work like this, but that's a dysfunction that will need to be corrected. In that case, you should do what works (and that will be different for everyone), my particular situation won't apply to your particular situation.
High-performance managers realise they are there to enable the talent. You're Brian Epstein, not John Lennon. The job is to create the conditions for folks at the pointy end to be wildly successful.
One of the most defining characteristics of this attitude is the maxim "hire people smarter than yourself", a very fine sentiment with the only problem being that by induction it makes the CEO the dumbest person in the company.
But I digress. If I'm fucking up, then I hope to god my trusted lieutenants will tell me without any pussyfooting around. It's practically what I hired them for.
I've always worked in places that are essentially established businesses. People are mostly bureaucrats and lazy. I believe that's a large majority employers. If you honestly can't understand that that's how a lot of people work, then I think you live in a bubble.
Albeit, yes, with a flagrant disregard for authority (I hesitate to label myself "type A", it's such a reductive term) that worked best when in the second and third decades of my career I was generally engaged on a consulting basis as a fixer/troubleshooter.
So I would admit guilt to an accusation that I have placed myself inside my current bubble intentionally. It's a matter of psychological safety and self-respect. I wasn't kidding when I said I hope you can find a way off that chain, it's an outcome I'd wish on all my peers.
We are all human, we have biases and blindspots.
Your trusted lieutenants can come to you and tell you you forgot to do X and because doing X is something either within your personality comfort zone or just outside it, you can if reasonably adjusted take that on.
But there will be things you are not reasonably adjusted for, things that require you to make significant adjustments to your world view and personality - things that you need to make serious compromises on
Some people are so maladjusted they cannot compromise on stuff most of the world agrees on - generally we call them criminals. But this is a spectrum - bad managers usually have very poor matching between their personal problems and the needs of the role.
But even good managers reach a point that their instincts and their rational mind cannot take them past.
In short “everyone is promoted to their level of incompetence” is not a skills problem, but a character problem.
A lot of managers in tech got there because they are technically strong. We can argue about whether that's correct or not but I think that's typically the case. People who perform well as engineers are the ones who are given leadership opportunities. People who do not are not.
So first challenge is given you were maybe one of the smarter hires, of some smart people that tried to hire people smarter than themselves (let's assume), how do you hire people smarter than yourself? at scale?
Where we end up typically in successful tech companies is with some degree of a mix of trying to make "folks at the pointy end successful" and some degree of "telling the folks at the pointy end what to do". Usually managers and directors are very strong technically and quite sharp, though more distant from the actual work because they don't do it any more. The precise mix depends on culture and circumstances but it's almost never this ideal environment of servant leaders surrounded by immense talent and just facilitating that talent doing great things.
I've been in places that are very close to the "good" end of this spectrum and there's still going to be some pause in giving feedback to leadership that they've done something wrong. Maybe you have a great relationship with your lieutenants where they can be openly critical of you and you reinforce that. I think that's highly unusual in a social environment. It's a lot more likely there are certain things they won't share with you because they estimate the damage to the relationship is larger than the utility of being open.
EDIT: I misread your statement about hiring people smarter than yourself, so I think we agree there. The problem is still that if you're the smartest person there's a bit of tension between that and creating conditions for the people under you to be successful. Btw, I still think you should try and hire people smarter than yourself ;) it's just hard to impossible to scale that - as you point out.
> I think that's highly unusual in a social environment
Agreed, but in my experience of startups particularly, this becomes more commonplace with older founders. It can also form the basis of an high-performance enclave within otherwise ossified large companies/institutions; these tend to get dragged down by the mediocrity police after a few years, but in the meantime you can get some good stuff done.
Whether the music industry analogy is valid may be debatable, but I've had the privilege of seeing it first-hand, music was/is the family business, I grew up knocking around recording studios. So this mindset is engraved on my expectations of all talent-based professions, and I try to remember it whenever I fail to be humble.
The phrase “hire people smarter than yourself” is a platitude that is intended to foster an attitude, just a useful way of framing & thinking about people, mainly aimed at the manager, but has the byproduct of making ICs feel good about themselves. It’s not really a literal measurable specific requirement or goal. One way to see that nobody is taking it literally is that nobody is reporting IQ on their resume, and nobody is giving standardized IQ tests during job interviews. (And of course I mean statistically nobody, I’m not claiming that it’s never happened.) Often in hiring ‘smart’ doesn’t really mean smart anyway, it means wisdom, experience, attitude, skill, communication, knowledge, motivation, creativity, adaptability, friendliness, culture-fit, etc., there are many different ways someone can be ‘smarter’ than you on at least 1 axis of whatever ‘smart’ means, and it’s generally not hard to find them if we’re realistic about how smart we are on all axes.
You don't do it in public. There's no face to lose in private (you're a subordinate, face is only lost among peers and superiors).
It is, however, not really a good idea to be 100% blunt out of the gate. There's a dance to it. But in public, I'm there to make my manager look good, and in private I'll tell them exactly what I think. Once they're confident I'm there to be at their back, it's never gone wrong, even in highly disfunctional orgs (I'm a consultant and get brought in to play "doctor" with hopeless projects a lot).
To summarize - each of us is pretty unique, and without going though it you can't know how words can affect other people, even those above you that should know better. But they didn't get to that elevated position via honed skill of listening calmly to their subordinates feedback, did they.
I disagree. Losing the respect of your subordinates is IMHO worse than of your superior.
In my experience, this is both harmless and necessary. If I, as a manager, can't handle that, then I'm kinda screwed.
But it is also highly dependent on the types of people we manage.
Source: Manager for over 25 years, of a bunch of folks much smarter and more experienced than me.
Although one may lead to the other, they are different things.
When times are bad? Oh boy.
For a large majority of supervisors, if you give them carefully-worded, polite, respectful, private, accurate, truthful, ego-preserving feedback about something they're doing wrong, their response will range between "immediate firing" and "hold a grudge against you, fire you as soon as they can find a replacement". There is nothing that makes people as angry as accurately pointing out their flaws.
The way around this is in essence to get the leader to think it was their idea to make a change, which is possible in some cases but not in others.
But sure, you do need to adapt your strategy for the environment you exist in. That’s just common sense.
Rather than fluff it up, just make it explicit whichever you are doing.
If you actually like their work and are making an actionable suggestion, just say that, and don't forget to praise them for the work that you like. Far too often I see managers only give the suggestion and then it ends up looking like a threat.
> The reason you don't fluff feedback, or any information for that matter to your superiors, is described in basically every handbook on highly effective communication in organizations.
The reason you do fluff feedback to your superiors is that you're on an H1B visa, are at risk of getting deported from the country and having to find a new home for your partner and new school for your kids (possibly in an unfamiliar language and environment for them), just for upsetting one superior.
The reality is most people in large companies do not care about "highly effective communication". They are just trying to survive and not get deported. Once we can get rid of this stupid 60 day rule and insane housing and child-raising costs maybe people will start caring about their work. The most basic of Maslow's needs are not being met, hence the fluffing up to the authorities (bosses) who are in control of your livelihood.
I would be surprised if respectful constructive criticism was met with firing but I suppose it does happen. Probably not the best to be working for those people in any case.
Hold your tongue, there's no such thing as a safe space in any all hands or group-level meeting.
Much of their examples are a kind of diplomacy that you might use with a somewhat hostile, stupid, and/or petty person. Not in an environment of trust and respect.
Or with an enterprise customer, where "business politeness" is expected, trying to gain advantage is expected, and no one expects you to be very honest.
(Exception: In some cultures, it might be outright rude and mutually awkward to ever say anything critical-sounding upwards, or to offend someone by not going through the politeness motions, which would just be disrespectful. The article seems to be coming from some kind of environment or social expectations like that. I'm not talking about that here. I'm talking about, say, a US tech business environment that at least thinks it values speaking up with honest assessments.)
Ideally, management welcomes straight talk, and will do the right thing with it.
For example, if you've not been given reason to think the person above you is dishonest or unreasonable, and they haven't been given reason to think that about you, but you don't yet know them well, here's an example:
"The team is having some serious difficulty. Is now a good time to talk very candidly and constructively about that? ... Two things. First, I think that people are feeling that they don't have a good understanding of what the goals are, and how they're supposed to be prioritizing, on a daily basis. The other thing that seems to be bothering people is that onboarding is rough, and people immediately feel like they're not doing well, and then they aren't getting out of that feeling."
Note that this might sound a bit like some of the diplomatic framing of the article, in that it's not accusatory, but that's not what I'm doing. Some examples in the article attribute problems to the manager, and then use diplomacy, for cultural politeness, and/or to circumvent some pettiness they expect.
By contrast, in this example, I'm instead respecting the manager as someone who will take the information constructively. I'm also not presuming to attribute blame for the problems, since I don't have all the information about the situation, including not knowing everything the manager has been doing and why.
Sounds good on paper. Maybe true, oh 5 years ago. In this job market, polishing the resume is nice but you might have to deal with irrational superiors for a little longer. That's what the article is about.
> The reason you fluff up feedback to your subordinates is because lower down the chain they tend to be insecure and don't yet have the experience to distinguish between actionable impartial feedback, and threats to their job security.
It would all be nice and good if "subordinates" and "superiors" were some completely different, disjoint sets. Yesterday's insecure peers and your subordinates will tomorrow become your superiors. People who can - do, those who can't - manage. Their personalities and other qualities likely wouldn't change in the meantime. In a perfect world, everyone who is promoted to be anyone's superior will go through a strong leadership vetting process and they will take un-fluffed honest feedback from subordinates, without retribution. But I have yet to work for such an organization. Maybe you're luckier...
Wouldn't it be better to just not provide feedback and coast along if you're in this position?
Edit: an additional consideration as I am digesting my response. People are more open to discussing how to improve a process or a system rather than a person or even more so themselves. Feedback is sometimes personal, that's why things like post mortems, process reviews etc. can work miracles when we manage to keep them about the process or framework rather than the people who are assigned to them.
An additional slightly cynical point on feedback received as a subordinate (no matter how high up you most probably report to someone unless you are at the top). If someone gives you feedback about what you should do to get promoted/a raise etc , you are 90% not going to get those even if you heed to the feedback. These things happen for things you do, and the broader perception of yourself not on the basis of a checklist, and if they use a checklist against you, they don't really care about You. If someone mentors you, you will get it. Learn to read the difference between the two.
And that is really the point of the post. Here is advice on how to make sure your point is clear, articulate, and constructive.
As someone becomes more senior 2 things happen:
1. They acquire more authority 2. They have more demands on their time.
In these situations, you need to work to make sure you are communicating what you intended to communicate. That requires effort.
I wouldn’t view this advice as “how to deal with fragile egos”, but instead would view it as “how to make sure you are not misunderstood when having critical conversations with high stakes”.
In that regard it is good advice.
Management is hard, because it makes significant emotional demands on us, and a lot of people deal with the combination of power and emotions badly.
You need to be both careful and creative with your prompt in order to get them to produce the result you want. :)
> “We may need to give even more guidance to new hires.”
Up or down, "we may" and "even more" are weasel words that weaken what you're saying. It's trivial for someone to interpret that as "they think maybe we could do more, but they seem to also see that we do a good amount already."
> “I used to struggle with this, and when I tried X, it really helped.”
This one I think is good for managing down; bad for managing up. It's less weasel-y but it risks coming off very aggressive - "I already figured this out, what is wrong with you?"
> “The team made amazing progress when we all focused on the website update last month. It might help to have one or two clear priorities for the team this month that everyone can rally behind.”
You have a great example, "it might help" is again weakening your POV compared to something more like a direct "what are the top priorities this month that we can all rally around?"
> “When we were able to dedicate that first week to training Steve, he got up to speed pretty quickly. The bit of upfront time seemed to have paid off, and taking a similar training approach for our next hire could help them ramp up just as fast. What do you think?”
Here we've taken a lot of words to state the obvious, which IMO both runs the risk of losing the urgency in the verbosity and coming off as pandering and over-explaining the obvious.
I think "what are your thoughts on" and "one approach might be" are better in both up-and-down directions as long as associated with a clear specific "here is something I noticed that I think is sub-optimal" situation.
Never a truer word said than this. It's incredibly naive to think that any unfiltered feedback upwards to senior management will be welcomed. In reality, no matter how accurate the feedback may be it will be regarded at best as useless, and at worst as a direct threat to leadership requiring a response. This response may come in the form of a re-org, team move or headcount reduction.
While totally disingenuous, your best strategy is to simply tow the corporate line while looking for a new job.
Yeah, I'm not going to change a job just because one of my superiors is insecure (and the other things are good). This all-or-nothing mentality is just thought-stopping.
You likely are, willingly or not.
What if you have reached the optimal level of income, and the work itself you like? Anywhere else would be a cut in either one of those 2.
I'm in a similar boat, but my engineering manager wants to get rid of them, so I'm being dragged into office politics now.
Other than a few rotten apples, the company is great. So, I'm also somewhat reluctantly looking for a new role.
In that situation fluffing the feedback will do nothing. It might take years of effort to get marginal improvements and it is more productive to focus on something that is ... well ... more productive.
There is an off chance that management (I'm not using the word leadership here deliberately) is taking leadership coaching, that the coaching is good, and that the coach will actually intervene and bring about change. Small likelihood of course, but not zero.
Everyone can be insecure and if your superior happens to feel insecure about you that day the damage can be severe.
If you told them something that could be interpreted as a criticism of a decision in front of others they would in principle not accept it and play to the audience. If you just told them a fact thst they disliked they would argue against it, I had a superior argue against fundamental laws of physics bscause he disliked the conclusion that followed from that lae being true.
Luckily I am a very diplomatic person and have no issues with that — but apparently things within organizations aren't as they should be.
and yet here we are...
This is the key assertion underlying your comment, yet you just wave it off by referring to unnamed "[handbooks] on highly effective communication in organizations".
My no-fluff feedback for you: Your comment would've been far stronger if you simply specified these unnamed handbooks, and summarized their argument, as opposed to fulminating + offering a handwavey argument-from-authority.
(Curious to see how you'll take this no-fluff feedback. Let's see if you're management material by your own standards.)
EDIT -- here is a LinkedIn post by a lady who wrote a book on workplace communication called Radical Candor. Her post recommends plenty of fluff for the boss, and to be frank, I think she makes some pretty good points: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kimm4_how-can-you-practice-sa...
https://www.perplexity.ai/search/what-are-some-handbooks-on-...
None of the books identified by Perplexity.AI appear to endorse lijok's claim. Of course, it could be a confabulation -- this is just a quick sanity check, to see if the claim is as manifestly true as lijok seems to think.
(Putting this in a separate comment so people can downvote separately if they want. If people don't like this sort of AI sanity check on HN, that's fine. Thought it was worth trying as an experiment, though.)
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kimm4_how-can-you-practice-sa...
>How can you practice safe Radical Candor with your boss?
>...
>Start by asking for feedback before you give it. You want to make sure you understand the you're boss's perspective before you start dishing out praise or criticism.
>...
>Tell your boss what you appreciate about them. This is not "kissing up." It's praise, which is an even more important part of Radical Candor than criticism.
>...
>Say something like, “Would it be helpful if I told you what I thought of X?”
>...
>If your boss says yes, start with something pretty small and benign and gauge how they react...
> Several handbooks on highly effective communication in organizations are:
1. “Winning” by Jack Welch and Suzy Welch, which emphasizes clear communication, open dialogue, and transparency in organizational success.
2. “Fierce Conversations” by Susan Scott, focusing on transforming everyday conversations at work to achieve success.
3. “Radical Candor” by Kim Scott, which promotes empathetic yet direct communication in professional settings.
In your reading of those titles and summaries, do they seem likely to recommend communicating layers of fluff to executives?
>the standard for communication in effective organizations is to be direct and to the point.
Sounds very nice, but empirically humans often struggle with frank feedback. I think that goes for both subordinates and superiors, for different reasons.
I would argue it can be worthwhile to spend an additional 25% time to make it clear that it's nothing personal, to avoid risking a deterioration of your relationship.
Obviously, it's good to have friendly relations with your coworkers, including your boss.
If you have a high-trust relationship with your boss where there's no risk of deterioration, and you know your boss likes it when you speak your mind -- more power to you. Be direct and to the point.
I suppose that if you can craft feedback with this criteria in mind it’ll have a high chance of going over well.
I know.
That post you linked to is great. I especially found insightful the part where she said "If your boss says no, let it drop and polish up your résumé! "
I’d never give negative feedback to an exec (+2 levels above me) in a large meeting. I’d wait for a more private setting.
With my immediate boss (director) I’d provide feedback in a small “managers only” group if I thought there was something to debate as a group, but not an open team meeting.
But your comments about subordinates is true. Generally try to keep feedback positive/constructive. And time it so they don’t feel attacked.
"I’d wait for a more private setting."
Only do this IF you think management is well adjusted human being that is not ego driven. I leave it to reader to decide exactly how much of management falls into that bin.
If management is not, they will know that you are a threat to them and work to undermine you and get you removed. If you provide feedback publically they can less afford the reputational hit (if you're correct in your publically aired assessments).
In either case you must play nice with your coworkers and subordinates.
You're arguing based on how you think the world should be instead of how the world actually is.
Where have you worked my dude that you have this perspective? After a long and storied career I can safely say you must have a narrow experience and there is nearly endless literature about the need to manage up.
Or maybe you're a bully boss yourself and it's just an empathy disconnect.
Or maybe you've only worked in relatively large corporations? Idk, the thick skinned executive isn't a trope and it isn't a trope for a reason.
But this attitude is not particularly useful in a world where things aren't black and white.
Be sure to tell them that too!
I have come to a simple rule: if the manager is good, there is no problem. If the manager sucks (often that's because they lack experience, but it's all the same), just lie to them in order to preserve yourself. No need to have empathy for them: there is no karma out there. Bad managers usually have no problem climbing the ladder, even if it means making your life miserable. Work for you, not them.
The two worst managers I had clearly had anger management issues and some sort of inferiority complex, theres no feedback to fix that.
Try to stick with good managers as long as you can, especially if their weaknesses that don't bother you too much, understand where it's coming from, and try not to take it personally.
The 3 examples at the top of the article - unclear guidance, unable to set priorities, and not training new hires .. these are good benign issues that I've seen repeatedly from good managers.
You can remind them in a friendly tone why things are happening -(as they raise yet another low importance high urgency task) "if we keep switching to these urgent but less important tasks, the long-term important things (give examples) you are unhappy with the pace of will continue to be slow". The best outcome tends to be a 20% reduction in the undesired behavior, over many months. It doesn't go away or get unlearned.
When I manage folks, I much prefer honesty over someone who just bullshits you.
I personally have good managers right now, so I don't bullshit them.
I have had mostly bad managers in my career though, and my advice in this situation is: bad managers are adversaries, behave accordingly.
So I like it when I can be frank with managers. I think I’m also notoriously hard to manage because one of my character flaws is that I don’t respect authorities. I’m not stupid though. I’ll absolutely bullshit managers in situations where there isn’t really a “win” to be achieved. Obviously this will mainly happen with bad managers, but there will always be great managers who won’t like, understand or have a good connection with you.
In general I think honesty is a good policy and management should be receptive to hearing out problems and possible solutions but that's not the same thing as implementing all feedback.
Maybe you're right or maybe your pet peeve just isn't a priority or can't be done for countless reasons. I'm not saying you did this but something I've seen often is employees confusing being heard with taking the advice.
As professionals I think it's our job to give advice and respect management's decision to take it or not. That's it I also think it's management's job to explain the reasoning.
That being said, I have also had managers that I’ve played board games with on our free time who I haven’t actually given my opinion on certain issues with because they weren’t very good at taking that advice. Sometimes I’ve also not done it because I knew managers of my manager wouldn’t take it well if it made I up the chain. I view this more as an issue between me and the organisation I work for. If I’m not invested I’m not going to help it beyond what they pay me to do because it rarely comes back to me in a positive way.
There are many aspect to it. I’ve also had a manager who was a total waste of space as a manager, only caring about the “good story” whether it was true or not to push their own career. Who was also rather cold in regards to management employee duties since they really didn’t like the negative sides of it. Who was then the warmest nicest person in their personal life.
So it’s a very complex situation as you pointed out, but it’s also one where it’s perfectly reasonable to not try to lead upwards if you don’t want the hassle. At least in my opinion.
In my experience (20yr) good managers don't need any feedback. They were good because of clear communication as to what both parties expected of each other. Bad managers rarely listen to feedback and few make changes.
At my current role I'm thankful for the high level of autonomy received and being shielded from anything not relevant to my primary tasks.
I'm constantly asked to do "side quests" for others due to being a subject matter expert in several things (relative to my colleagues).
Every request gets the same answer - if my line manager agrees to it then I shall help - provided it does not get in the way of my primary tasks.
IMHO unless you own the company, your number one customer should always be your line manager.
Let me give an example: to a good manager, you could say "I'm under a lot of pressure because I have two many urgent things on my plate" and they should try to improve your life by maybe de-prioritizing some of them. In a way you gave feedback "it's not going well for me", but you did not try to guide your manager in their role. So that's not the kind of feedback the featured article talks about.
Now a bad manager will maybe be nice and say "I understand, I really appreciate the late nights and weekends you spend getting closer and closer to a burnout, you are a really valuable employee to me", but that's completely useless. Trying to tell them "you know, in a previous job I had a manager who in these situations would try to de-prioritize stuff so that I could live normally" is completely useless. If they aren't doing it yet, it means that they should not be your manager in the first place. Best case they say "thank you for the feedback, I appreciate that you feel comfortable speaking up" and don't change anything, worst case they get pissed because you "overstepped" (they are the manager, they know they know better, remember?).
There is no world where they say "you're right, I sucked until today, but from tomorrow on I will magically know how to be a good manager".
Then proceeds to add one axis, getting the total up to 2! :-)
> Managers can be both good and inexperienced, in which case feedback is absolutely necessary to improve their lives and yours.
If they are good and inexperienced, I don't think they need to be taught that if they don't set priorities, they should not be disappointed when they realise that... no priorities have been set. So they are still good.
If they are bad "because they are inexperienced", then they are still bad. They should not be a manager. They can acquire experience without being a manager though, e.g. by having a manager in the first place.
It kind of made him sad, which wasn't great because he's a nice guy and a competent CTO, but his latest move was catastrophic and he needed to hear it.
> No need for the advice of the featured article for that, right?
I mostly agree with the other commenters here, giving feedback upwards is easier and you don't need to sugarcoat it as much, because you can't fire the person above so they aren't going to be insecure about your feedback. Then again, they are people, and giving constructive feedback gently is better than giving it harshly, so I can't say the article is entirely unnecessary. Maybe partly.
Did he completely change course because of your feedback?
I try to do the same when my reports give me feedback, and they've also been satisfied with it. Most recently, I was told I shouldn't abstract things too quickly, which was good advice, and following it has gotten good results.
The trick is to get into a company where the mission is sound, the direction makes sense, and your manager is good (i.e. protects you from above, and makes sure shit gets done in a timely and orderly fashion).
Then, help your manager out. Everyone has their flaws, bad situations etc. Be a true team member and help your manager out on those rare occasions where they really need it.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Best feedback I've ever gotten was from peers (other bosses). And that was only after years of working together. Sadly, that was a long time ago. I'd kick a puppy to work on a stable, durable team again.
A more nuanced way of saying this is that if you need to carefully think about how you address your manager, then it hints towards the fact that your manager is not good at being a manager. And in that case there is no way you can teach them if you are their report (if you know better, maybe you should be the manager instead, but it means that you put your manager in a bad position by showing it).
It is also a bit extreme to say that a good manager never needs feedback. What I meant is that they don't need feedback about how they fundamentally behave as a manager. Of course they need to receive information from their reports (be it just "we can't do this because I just proved that it is technically impossible").
The difference is that with a good manager, you won't have to read articles teaching you how to not hurt their pride.
And finally, the problem maybe on the side of the subordinate. But in that case it's not a problem of talking to the hierarchy: if an employee hurts his colleagues because they communication is too harsh, then of course there is something to improve there. But in my experience, employees tend to "blend in": if everybody talks trash of everything, then newcomers will adapt. If everybody is respectful, newcomers will be respectful.
I'm from cultures where we bluntly call a spade a spade and pride ourselves on disdain for hierarchy. There's far less fear in raising concerns generally to anyone, but it's quite possibly because of the far better employment laws.
I don't even feel like I'm working in the US when I'm working for any tech company these days. If I'm at ads for FB, I may as well be in Beijing. Some others, I may as well be in Mumbai.
It would be nice to work with Americans/westerners for once and actually be able to speak up about something without getting fired.
I’ve been put into the “practitioner of the dark arts” bucket twice when I predicted with detail and accuracy why certain large projects would fail.
The folks in charge were offended when I presented my analysis, and they were just afraid of me after my predictions came true.
When I had reasonable certainty of my next gig being lined up, I even put the question to leaders. "If I tell you why this project is destined to failure now in Q1 vs being quiet and playing along til end of year, will I be rewarded or punished any differently then?".
The response was 100% nervous laughter. It turned out both layers of management above me were also well aware the marching order they were passing along were going to end badly, and had already lined up their internal transfers, which happened within days of my departure as well.
If one has not read The Gervais Principle, it’s highly recommended.
https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...
I’m not just talking about public forums. Saying anything to your superior (perceived superior or otherwise) would result in disciplinary action nearly 100% of the time. It is not even about blunt vs tactful feedback. It’s about any feedback. You do exactly what you’re told and you shut the fuck up.
I don’t think H1Bism is even primarily about depressing IC wages in the west, it’s about middle managers being so burdened with pointless make-work from above that they just don’t have time to lead. They need people who don’t need to be led even if it costs in terms of quality and efficiency.
But
> 80% of your peers are Chinese and Indian H1Bs who bring that culture of deference to authority into the US.
is sadly spot on. Even when the org is very receptive to feedback, one manager in the chain who possesses a cultural belief in absolute authority is enough to break the feedback chain and lead to an organizational abscess of festering dysfunction.
It becomes even worse when your org's management has been taken over by a single cultural group and there is no one to turn to and your only option is to wait for the org to implode and be restructured from above.
Brits are even worse than Americans at all levels (hence, the largely incompetent government and the fact most businesses are poorly run - it's literally The Thick of It at all levels).
Indian/Asians are the absolute worst in terms of directness, these are all very strict hierarchies of business that only succeed if the top person is a genius, since they will never be challenged by anyone.
Europeans definitely are most direct of all, so they don't put up with wage slavery, so business leaders can't maximize their extraction of value from labour, but they tend to have better quality of life all around :).
I think there are a few significant (first-order) factors in the evolving US tech culture.
One is the often discussed age bias and growth rate, where these organizations are constantly diluting with incoming college grads and leaking their institutional knowledge and culture through low retention rates. It's not just H1B workers but all these new local hires who are "colonizing" the old tech world.
The second is the way FAANGs have focused on general consumer markets, advertising, and pop culture. To my eye, other markets used to be more influential. These other tech problems and investments remain, but the new media gold rush has seized the attention for many years. Consumer tech has been merging with media in general, and I think the culture inherently shifts in the same way.
The third factor is a bit recursive. The adoption of social media in the general population affects the way that culture evolves. This disproportionately influences young people, and a subset become the next wave of employees mentioned in the first point. But this is also why I wonder if these changes are more global, as my impression is that social media has accelerated the way regional cultural differences are eroding with more frequent and constant cross contact.
In my experience Americans layer the “we’re all friends here” on too thickly to ever be described as blunt.
The best work culture I had was in a dutch firm. People just straight up called bullshit out all the time, and it got fixed fast. So refreshing. I've never been able to find another workplace like that.
There are other factors involved - if a H1B employee, whose job security is tied to the employer risks taking a 10x salary cut or more by going back home, then a fear for job security leading to such behaviour is a given.
Inside AWS felt like hundreds (thousands?) of Indians who have terrible jobs but don't do anything about it. Now that I'm out I can't believe what I put up with.
Private Reiben: "I'm sorry, sir, but uh... let's say you weren't a captain, or maybe I was a major. What would you say then?"
Captain Miller: Well, in that case... I'd say, "This is an excellent mission, sir, with an extremely valuable objective, sir, worthy of my best efforts, sir. Moreover... I feel heartfelt sorrow for the mother of Private James Ryan and am willing to lay down my life and the lives of my men - especially you, Reiben - to ease her suffering."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhbObZEF0Mc Saving Private Ryan
He's being sarcastic about his approval of the mission they're on, but is making the point of not overtly complaining to his unit.
Business life could learn from this. The person in charge is not a king, they're simply the person tasked with making decisions. There is nothing scandalous in having another person evaluate those decisions against a set of principles or common sense, and speaking up when something doesn't feel right.
Better that than crashing into a mountain.
Yeah, better than crashing into a mountain. That cockpit voice recording was really chilling. Gladwell gets a lot of flack, but he's told some interesting stories.
And your further point about businesses needing it too should be expanded to organizations of all kinds. This is a human problem, which means it's an ego problem, on both sides.
Isn't the flack he's getting due to exactly that, that his stories would be interesting if true but often aren't?
I really, really disliked Gladwell. And yet Pushkin (his podcast network) carries some of the best stuff ever (Jill Lepore). And I found I was agreeing with a lot of Gladwell's (and Michael Lewis') overall "punching up" worldview. So I was having trouble reconciliing my two views of him.
As we've seen with Lewis' recent hagiography for that crypto freak: people are just people, they make mistakes, everyone's got blind spots, we don't have to agree on everything to learn from each other.
Quite literally: https://youtu.be/kamyxB-yKrc?t=1479
Or rolling off a cliff: https://youtu.be/0ga8UFy1M04?t=742
It particularly shocked me working in shipping where the lessons can be implemented pretty much without modification since it’s all the same work except they move in 2 rather than 3 dimensions.
The consequences of bad management in a software project on the other hand are much more nebulous. And nobody died as a direct consequence of some manager being a jerk… oh wait, I'm sure some did (committed suicide or gone postal), but it's easy to just blame the worker instead of the working place.
For some reason only air crashes seem to make any lasting impressions.
To give good feedback to anyone you need to understand something about the pressures and challenges that they are facing. And remember that everything is a trade off. For example, perhaps they're incredibly busy, and would like to spend more time with new hires, but are struggling to find time because they aren't getting enough blocks of concentration time to work out clear priorities and they have been told they need to give their trusted colleague more opportunities to grow so they delegated it to someone.
Most likely, if you think something is a problem then they do too. They don't need to be told that or criticised for it, they need help solving the problem that causes the problem.
Imagine the difference between "I want to give you feedback that you aren't spending enough time with new hires" vs "I know you've been wanting to spend more time with the new hires, why don't you take them for lunch and send me to your status meeting over Tuesday lunch time this week."
As I started doing more leadership, I became aware that a lot of the things I might previously have cited as predictable examples of leadership incompetence causing problems were not surprises to leadership. They knew that this course of action would cause problems. The reason that they went ahead anyway was because they believed that the problems caused by the other courses of action available to them would be worse.
Of course, there are situations this advice does not apply, maybe the leader genuinely is clueless or evil or mistaken about the severity of a problem, but a good leader when presented with a problem elsewhere needs to start from a position of respect and learning and if you want to give advice to a leader you should start by trying to model good leadership yourself.
This is the proper answer. Ultimately, feedback should be about changing something. My experience is that most people are neither good at giving or receiving feedback, and that includes myself. There are more effective ways to change things.
OP's is useful when you have to give feedback, which is expected in most large companies in some form or other (evals, etc.).
It also depends on your goals, but fixing some issues encountered by your manager is one of the most reliable way to promotion in up to mid size companies, unless your manager is a a*hole.
If I don't trust them to represent me and the team, then obviously that suggestion wouldn't work, but I'm trying to express the difference between someone pointing out a problem as if the problem is just yours or offering to help take responsibility for the problem as part of a team with you.
I've worked with people who made it a point of pride to always bring a concrete, workable suggestion whenever they brought me a problem. We didn't always go with their suggestion, but they were fantastic to work with.
Thankfully, I've never had to worry about keeping good people on my team down out of fear they'd take my job.
It's funny because it could go exactly the two opposite ways. If you "report the problem", you might be - totally as punishment - volunteered into the position to work on it, in addition to your normal workload. If you "report the problem and volunteer to do something about it", you might be shot down. Hilarious, right?
That's back to the fundamental problem: you need to work on building an understanding of your manager. You have the workload assigned to you, then you have everything you need to do to further your own career.
Another tactic that works for me is “Can I offer a suggestion?” The answer is almost always yes but it’s a sign of respect to ask.
Unfortunately, likely due to surveys, most people are accustomed only offering declarations in lieu of interrogatives.
Probably a matter of culture too.
In particular if a choice has been made and going back to reverse it has significant costs, it is important to not say anything like "We should not be doing this" or "You made a mistake." Unless there is a good of action to reverse course that is simply being rude for no reason. Even in the case where there is a good way to reverse a decision, I would rather ask for the reasoning that led to the decision than strongly state the decision is wrong. If I am working with someone I respect at all, I must entertain the thought that I am wrong and they made the right decision with good reasoning.
What would you say to a superior who made a decision that you disagree with, but don't think is worth reversing? My best guess is either nothing or something that more strongly asserts your belief, but I can't think of any better option than phrasing it as a question.
"I don't understand ... it seems it has the consequence of ... My professional opinion in that case would be... and I would advise to... because of... Is there something I'm not seeing here?"
Benefits:
- I'm not faking it.
- I already provide a lot of information up front to limit back-and-forth. This avoids assumptions and also works better for when you WFH.
- The person knows exactly where I stand and where I want to go. It's not chit-chat, it's not politics, it's purely technical and I want to move on the issue.
- If I'm wrong, I can get told right away. If I'm right, it's factual, and we can move on to solving the problem. And if the person's ego/social status is on the line, they can just BS their way out of it, and I'll just add nothing and move on.
- The template drives the conversation enough that they only need a short answer to let us decide if it's worth reversing. And we can conclude on the price / consequence of that and move on if needed.
I'll change that depending on the person. Some people are way better than me, in that case, I'll default to asking what I'm missing because it's likely they see something I don't.
On the opposite, if it's a junior, I'll assume they get it wrong and help them to fix it (unless they can justify it).
And of course, phrasing will depend of how much intimate I am with the person. Good friends will get a playful version, uptight clients will get the more formal one.
Once you have done that several times and people know the routine and the relationship is good, you barely have to speak. You can just nod at something or raise an eyebrow, and start problem solving or get the info.
But note that I can do that also because my clients value my opinion enough, have respect for my professionalism, and also know, because of my past interactions with them, that I focus on the problem to solve rather than blaming.
That's essentially the same thing. The only difference is that you're putting your uncertainty at the end and I'm putting it at the beginning. The key is to explicitly acknowledge that you recognize the possibility that you might be wrong.
I think the best feedback comes from people who have tried to understand the reasons other people have, before asking "is there a reason ...?".
I think many people would take that as a direct challenge of their decision.
I'm no human expert but personally I'd try something like "Man I bet you had to make some tradeoffs and juggle priorities over $X right ! ..." and then see what they offer up. At the water-cooler, bar etc
> "Can I offer a suggestion?”
It's not the done thing to say no to that but depending on the tone a lot of people would then just ignore whatever comes out your mouth
And in the end usually the company loses out - directors forge ahead with ill-informed projects (rewrite entire system X), don't measure/cherry-pick/game-metrics, and create a major threat to anybody on the team who surfaces any contraindicating metrics (e.g. "Our pipeline still takes Y hours and nobody is happy about it, including us").
idk if this is a US thing; its mainly a thing where a manager is tasked with supporting a product that they dont understand. managers in these situations attempt to treat their managerial role as if the product itself does not matter - the team has metrics to hit, and to them thats more important than the product.
Sure, but you won't get fired, right?
Even so, this is just about dealing in general with people who have ego (for the sake of brevity) issues. I don't understand why this should be advice for dealing with senior leadership in general.
in my experience, they will start an email paper trail as a precursor to a PIP.
In other words, this is pure Machiavellian politics. The truth doesn’t matter. If you don’t kiss the donkey’s ass, the best advice IMO is to shut the hell up, collect your paycheck, and go home and kiss your wife. Your family is the only people who matter. The farce will go on for years. Like all Ponzi schemes, it will eventually collapse. But it may take years.
Possibly: in many places there they have "at will" employment, where they can basically fire you with little to no severance at any time for any reason. There are limits, but compared to most of Europe that's the gist of it.
So yeah, you can be fired just because someone doesn't like you. And giving feedback is a good way to not be liked.
I would agree in an ideal world where salaries are tied to a qualification (a notion a tad more nuanced than just diploma), instead of their job. While there is no (nor should be any) constitutional right to work at any given company, I think people should have an inalienable right to live. Which in practice means food, shelter, and health care at a minimum, regardless of their ability (perhaps even willingness) to work anywhere.
The compromise most EU countries have settled on is that once you're employed and past some probation period (in my line of work that can last up to 8 months), then they can't fire you without a damn good reason or a hefty severance (the better the reason the lower the severance, basically). But it cuts both ways: I personally can't leave immediately, I have to tell my employer 3 months in advance. It is in a way a kind of severance.
But the asymmetries don’t end there. Terminating employment is a far greater threat to the employee than the employer. This creates a power imbalance which could easily be exploited by malicious or incompetent employers. That power imbalance is fundamental to this relationship and is reason enough (in the opinion of many countries) to bolster worker rights.
I can.
Think of what employment is for a second: shareholders (or company owners) own the capital, and the employee gets to follow orders. Structurally, the company pay workers less than their actual value: shareholders gotta hold, and they squeeze the margin out of the employee. The margin may be thin, but it's never meant to be zero (except for non-profits, but they're the exception).
Such a relationship is fundamentally asymmetrical, such an exchange fundamentally unequal. If you want any hope of restoring fairness from this system, termination conditions have to be asymmetrical as well.
I once had an owner of a small business threaten to sue me for quitting because it would cause financial harm to the business. And that was with giving 4 weeks notice.
At-will employment laws protect employees that want to quit, not just employers that want to fire.
Does your unemployment insurance work after you quit? Or does it only work when you're fired?
Edit: can anyone suggest any good (free) tools for eliciting 360 feedback? Potentially anonymously?
Why this psyop works:
1. People like to take credit for things.
2. People don't like to be wrong.
3. People get irked when a good idea wasn't their idea.
4. People don't like to feel threatened.
5. Just remove the duck.
The examples given are a little contrived, but the techniques applied are gold for more tricky scenarios.
Ok, cool, I've heard this a gazillion times by now. I don't disagree, it does looks like it's better at getting shit done. Just one question: how do I get credited for anything? I have my career to look out for too.
https://www.manager-tools.com/2012/02/do-not-give-feedback-y...
The sources strongly advise against giving feedback to your boss, even if your boss claims to be open to it. This is due to the inherent power dynamics in organizations and the potential negative consequences. Here's why:
- Power Differentials: Organizations have vertical structures where bosses have more power, authority, and responsibility [1-3]. This means that certain behaviors, like giving feedback, are reserved for those in higher positions [3].
- Risk of Negative Reaction: Even if a boss claims to be open to feedback, they might react negatively, consciously or subconsciously, to criticism from their subordinates [4-6]. This can lead to:
- Damaged Relationships: The boss may view the feedback as insubordination or a lack of respect, straining the relationship [7]. Stalled Career Progress: The boss may hold a grudge, potentially impacting future promotions or opportunities [7].
- Job Security: In extreme cases, giving unsolicited feedback could even lead to termination [8].
- Misinterpretation and Misunderstanding: Bosses often interpret upward feedback as a challenge to their authority or a lack of understanding of the complexities of their role [9, 10]. They might feel that the direct is overstepping their boundaries or does not have enough experience to offer valid criticisms [11].
- Breakdown of Hierarchy: Allowing upward feedback can blur the lines of authority and lead to a situation where directs feel empowered to dictate their boss's actions [9]. This can create chaos and undermine the effectiveness of the team.
- False Sense of Openness: Many bosses want to believe they are open to feedback, but in reality, very few are truly capable of handling it maturely and constructively [12, 13]. Their initial openness might just be a facade that crumbles when faced with actual criticism [14].
The sources highlight that while it's tempting to give upward feedback, especially with good intentions, it's generally unproductive and carries significant risks. They advocate for focusing on alternative approaches like offering suggestions during brainstorming sessions or providing input through formalized channels like 360 reviews, while exercising extreme caution even in those situations.
Whereas when I work with people from the US a lot of fluff is always needed or offense may be taken. Just as the article purports.
And there is also body language. Here is one of my favorite exchanges I once witnessed, between two senior leaders, one Spanish, one Finnish, after a few beers at a company party. I leave it to the inclined reader to guess who is from which country.
Sergio (gesticulating, grinning): Lauri, why don't you use your hands more when you're talking?
Lauri (hands flat on the table, straight face): Because it's not efficient.
I'd rather live in a world where we could give blunt and direct feedback like, "You suck as a manager, why are you still insisting on this?" However, we live in a situation where the system will always push back against any dissenting voices, and in the end, back-patting and corporate camaraderie are what keep the wheels turning.
"It depends"
It depends massively and that's the main problem. So I'd focus on understanding how that works with this specific manager M you are concerned about. It will be different with another manager. After that it's detail. Managers are human, flawed, not anywhere near rational (not fully rational anyway), and in some cases crooked or insane. Just like their reports and bosses, kind of? Try and feel out how that manager operates before "doing anyone a service".
In particular, it means not relying on the idea that they would reason the same as you do.
Because for example, absolutely "providing info so they get to look good, privately so there is no loss of face" will blow up in your face with some managers. Even if it's to the detriment of that manager.
In some cases, it will be even worse than this because that manager will be well ahead of you and already have their own plans in place for their own future. In a case like this it's not even necessarily possible for you to imagine what reaction you might get.
To be fair, there is a general plan available for you: Cultivate a network, keep your resume in front of people. Then you can be bolder.
It seems the real problem here is the power difference between people, combined with the powerful side not having a thick enough skin… or lacking the actual competence that we ought to expect of their position.
A competent leader will not be offended or feel threatened by a piece of feedback, however negative: either the feedback is crap and they'll calmly say "nope, trust me I know what I'm doing here", or the feedback has enough truth in it for them to say "oops, I'll do better next time", and then proceed to actually do better.
An incompetent leader however likely know they're incompetent, and they're less likely to meaningfully judge feedback. They're more likely to look for social validation, and more importantly secure their position. Any negative feedback threatens that position, and when that feedback comes from below, the solution is obvious: slap the peasant down, perhaps even fire them.
Often there's little you can do around those people. For instance, I once applied for a contracting gig that would involve cryptographic work. I was rejected because I was "more competent than the project lead". My guess is the hiring manager there knew that if they brought in someone more competent than the project lead, things would go bad. Quite the indictment of the project lead if you ask me.
My best project lead on the other hand had no problem being a worse programmer than the people under him (the tech lead for sure, and I probably). He worked on the parts he could, trusted us to do our thing, and I trusted him with telling me the priorities. Best gig of my entire career.
Replace 'competent' with 'perfect'. Most people are very easily offended or threatened by negative feedback. One can argue that they shouldn't be, ideally, but I don't think you can really say that anyone who's not maximally receptive to negative feedback is incompetent.
Looking at their web page this author seems like a professional bullshitter that pivoted into enabling other bullshitters, for a fee.
Some important questions:
1) Why are they a leader at all?
2) Why are they your chosen leader?
Maybe they aren’t good at it, or maybe they’re new to managing and this is one skill where they will get better.
[1] I know the article is about senior managers, but it reads as though the mean “somebody more senior than me” and not “somebody who has been managing a long time”
I don't think training managers on real people is a good idea.
1) There is some ideal way to interact that exists, but is not yet known, so we're all essentially still just fumbling in the dark and occasionally encountering light from an as-yet-unknown source
2) There is some ideal way to interact that is more or less understood by some but not all because it is simply not being communicated well (the rate of incoming employees is greater than the rate of knowledge spread- incidentally, this is the same problem I suspect exists with functional languages being perennially less-popular)
3) There is some ideal way to interact that is understood and known but is incompatible with existing and persistent (stable dysfunctional equilibrium) dysfunctionalities in orgs
4) There is in fact no ideal way to interact in a hierarchy because it is largely dependent on the individual personalities of the participants as well as the setup of the org
I don't think personality real encapsulates it. I don't believe Elon musks personality has changed, but his fundamental GIGO has.
I'm so glad i spent most of my career in Norway where that is so much less likely. In fact it putting your employment at risk is really so unlikely as to not be worth consideration. Well being is of course a bit harder to quantify and control.
You can coddle bad managers as this article suggests; but take a step back and look at the bigger picture.
Will this person cause harm, death, or injury due to their decision making or lack there of? Attempt to fix them for a limited duration or get the hell out. Do it in a collaborative way, where you can enable them to make the right choices. That doesn't work? Get out. Don't enable them to cause harm.
No you're not. If your organization does not giving feedback easy, and safe, they're the ones who have failed. You don't owe them anything.
They will genuinely be confused by American-style feedback. Did you ever notice that we use a lot of superlatives? Something we like is the best, we love it, it's the greatest ever? That's not bad, it's just our style of talking, but the untrained Nordic will take that seriously. I have to tone that way down: "That code is really well done."
Moreover, you are required to give truthful feedback, here. It's not optional. If you think something is a bad idea and you don't say anything, you are doing a bad. If somehow you're caught not saying something, or worse, lying and saying you think it's a good idea, you will be in trouble and lose reputation.
This approach to giving and getting feedback took some getting used to, but I find it refreshing and I am afraid I'm spoiled for any other way.
Scrum masters are particularly dangerous because they are highly skilled at blending in by speaking and acting like developers. That’s why they are so popular to spend project money on despite their apparent uselessness.
First I'd start by mentioning something they doing well OR something positive about them that relates to their job. Ie they have good attitude or get on good with co workers etc.
Then I would move on to what it was thought needed "some improvement" Id mention the "positive outcome" that would result if the feedback I was about to give was implemented. I could even tone it down ...with the words "...my opinion ..."
ie My opinion , is if we ( meaning the manager ) where to do "... what ever ..." it could result in this "....more desirable outcome..." I could soften it more by saying .... we tried this at my previous job ... and it gave "...whatever the positive result is "
( Giving effective feedback is a skill. I learnt how to do in a speech training program called "Toastmasters " We had a internal Toastmasters club for the company I worked add ( Not in the US ) with about 30 members. Often the other members where >several levels< above me. Me - a very junior person at the time. So had to give feedback to Senior staff about their speech. )
> “Can I live with this? How much does this bother me? Is it worth giving them feedback and what are my chances of success doing it?”
and doing multiple rounds of this you are compromising with yourself at an early stage. This frequently leads to things escalating (the problem didn't go away and in fact got incrementally worse because there was no negative feedback) which makes it a much harder situation.
This article is also written with examples like, if you don't make small changes to your wording, you'll get responses like "You think I don’t know that I need to give new hires guidance? I obviously gave them guidance. GTFO." which clearly catastrophizes outcomes based on small nuances in your own already inoffensive language.
Feedback is like gardening. Take care of small problems early and gently but relentlessly. If there's a wolf in your garden you should probably do something about the wolf instead of working around the wolf and spending your life in fear, even if that means finding a different garden.
I will recommend the book "The Coward's Guide to Conflict" which helped me get a healthy perspective.
https://www.amazon.com/Cowards-Guide-Conflict-Empowering-Sol...
I do my time, I get paid and move on. Don’t need drama at work.
So, just be aware. Many of us are someone's boss. You might not feel like you're 'senior', but to them you are.
Be open. Listen. Don't react (immediately). Consider. Just stop and think for a second. Realise that these other people's views are, at the very least, worth considering. (They may, of course, be wrong.)
One of the most rewarding things I did before I left the corporate world was have a 26-year-old grad as a direct report. I was 46 and had 'Head of…' in my job title. She was as smart as anything and it was an incredible experience. Hopefully, for us both.
How to build trust? Make it clear you are on their 'side'.
Luckily giving feedback can be that way:
- Give any positive feedback publicly
- Give any negative feedback privately
- Rather than give negative feedback, come with concrete things that could be done to improve things. Try not to assign blame.
Do this consistently while being good at your job and they are more likely to not misinterpret your opinions as rationalization
Unless your company is in pursuit of a noble human endeavor, just make sure you get some good work done, and make good connections along them way. The truth is rarely what a company seeks. So if your manager is imperfect, don't sweat it.
I don't do it because it can play against me in the worst case. And I won't get anything out of it. People can be more sensitive than it seems and unsolicited feedback isn't always welcome.
My company is big on feedback, so we're expected to give peers and managers feedback. I never fill the "constructive feedback" part of the form, or I just put something harmless. We also have anonymous evaluation forms. If something is wrong with manager or leadership, it'll show there.
Do you want the job?
or
Do you want to be right?
Dealing with senior leaders (VP/Director, not C-suite) can be different too.
Managing up and influencing others may work well, or not at all.
Working one's way up in different workplaces, industries and regions can vary wildly and I would probably caution from my own experience in a lot of verticals that it's best to get to know the scenario and see if you can recognize what might help.
Is there any solution for this? Co-op? Contract work? Consultancy? Union? Flat org structure? Self employment? Start a company with a couple of engineer friends and have flat org, based on trust?
I’m guessing only the last two options are promising. I’d appreciate hearing everyone’s stories, as I am genuinely interested.
“How can I suck up EVEN MORE than I am now”
I understand the wisdom that they are trying to convey. But sucking up to those on higher pay grades like this for the greater good of the company? I think if it’s that dangerous providing feedback to the company then upper management need to put even more effort into determining who makes good leadership material.
Give enough context to avoid back-and-forth follow ups. Don’t be coy when you can be direct. Don’t speak in stream of consciousness. Assume your manager is task switching or checking your Slack message between meetings—make it super easy for them to catch up on context and dive into what you want to discuss.
Many commenters seem to take absolutist positions on this and think no one should ever allow themselves to be under a bad manager but it happens and then you need to effectively deal with it and these are some good techniques to do so.
The techniques even apply to working with a good manager. You shouldn't just vomit every criticism or critique to your superior. You should engage in introspection and internal dialogue to see if your perspective is correct and if there is more you can do to address the issue before spamming your manager.
If someone is offended by the article they might need to take a step back and ask if their ego has grown beyond its useful size.
Giving feedback is definitely an art and a thin line between getting your point across in a clear way vs running up against ego or impatience.
If you care about your org's success it's critical to know your audience, their approach and value system, and how to tailor your message to account for what will resonate with them. It's really tough stuff.
- These are a few points for you to use
Write an article with that. Get mentioned on HN.
the best way to tell it is to be direct, with examples. i want to know that, i want to improve myself. i only expect perfect honesty.
it’s good for both parties. i’m a no bs guy. tell me things straight, good and bad, i will do the same always in a fair honest way. i expect nothing else and there are no repercussions for that. in the end, if you are unhappy and you do nothing about it, nothing will change.
Deviate and your career will stall at best
And you remain modest and ready to learn and listen. Especially because your superiors always have information that you don't have and which might explain decisions which you don't understand, and won't without this information.
And you don't "tell", you ask about topics, and show interest.
Then you might be able to propose real help to your boss, and suggest him to delegate some responsibility to you. And that's where you have some agency to create meaningful change. Bingo.
Concur. In hierarchical organizations, with power over your job security and prospects held by the person above you, bad news does not travel upwards.
Br, CTO
The important factors are
- do you have a good understanding of where your goals and priorities differ and where they overlap? Maybe you want to reduce tech debt and your manager wants to hit q3 goals. Then saying "spending 1 week addressing this issue will allow us to implement features a,b,c in 2 weeks instead of 4" is stating your goal with an emphasis on how it helps manager get to theirs.
- do you have an existing relationship of trust? Humans are pretty tribal. If person you're talking to up or down defaults to "this is an ally who usually says competent things" then you can be much more direct and blunt. "Your idea is stupid because of these flaws that you didn't consider". If you don't have that trust, then some of the sugar coating "fluff" is necessary to avoid emotional reactions.