Hacker News Reader

Comment by doctorpangloss | Hacker News Reader

Eh—hoarding credit is sort of the M.O. of a really great product manager.

A PM has to compete with all the other PMs to get her features implemented. And if the PM's feature gets implemented first, this PM looks super productive.

I think if you're an product manager looking to be the best product manager, taking credit is imperative. Because at the end of the day, your feature is just paper until it is implemented.

Not being hated, well, that's another matter... I sympathize with the enormous friction between folks who assign work and folks who finish it.

View on HN

I appreciate the comment but disagree. Leading great product teams is based on trust and trust is earned by success. Ongoing success depends on a highly motivated team and praise drives motivation as well as any other reward. Leaders do not succeed over time by hoarding kudos. They share it freely.

I sympathize with the enormous friction between folks who assign work and folks who finish it.

I don't. If you create this separation between the two categories, you'll have a terrible organization and when it caves in on itself, I will cheer that process on.

That's why open allocation is morally superior (in addition to working better). People "assign" work to themselves (without noise) and then do it. None of this parasitic high-horse management bullshit.

You know how much better the world would be if "work" was a culture of doing things rather than delegating and taking credit? It'd be a different world. People might actually, like, work when they go "to work".

I cannot praise this comment enough.

You know how much better the world would be if everyone was good at work? If everyone had a correct estimation of his/her own ability? If everyone knew when to defer to those with better judgement?

The world would be awesome. But that's not the way the world is. And not all well-oiled machines will stay well-oiled...and in such a situation, sometimes it may be worth it to have someone who manages the process and can play King Solomon anytime two workers are fighting over a baby.

I'm not sure if the PM role does this well in practice, I'm just saying, I can imagine such a role in an imperfect work environment paying off.

Lots of people don't assign work to themselves, though, if given the opportunity. People shirk, they don't want to do this or that and if something is boring or hard and nobody is watching them they'll do something else.

Other people aren't very good at estimating what something will cost in terms of time or effort.

It's actually pretty rare to find people that assign themselves tasks and follow through on them. If you have an entire organization made up of people like that, awesome; it's the ideal, not the norm.

It's difficult to respect anybody who publicly takes credit for the success of their team. People in leadership positions should always look to defer.

It's important to remember that you are only a leader if people choose to follow you.

Otherwise, you are just leveraging your position, and that's probably not a good long-term strategy, nor is it the right thing to do.

Credit means much more when it is given, not taken.

Totally agree. Plus, it's in a PM's selfish long-term interests to keep the team motivated by deflecting praise.

I think you have your logic backwards. Do you think the engineering team will implement the feature first for the PM that hogs the spotlight and takes the credit, or for the PM who gives credit to the team that implements her ideas? You need to let the love flow down to all of the team.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com