How To Rise Fast At Work: A True Story

http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/21/rise-fast-job-leadership-careers-employment.html?feed=rss_popstories

by svjunkie • 17 years ago

148 40 17 years ago

BigZaphod2• 17 years ago

Perhaps I like being a coder/doer too much, but there's an assumption that the ideal to strive for is to move up the chain into management as quickly as possible. What fun is that?

gaius3• 17 years ago

It's an insidious problem, because ultimately in most organizations hiring decisions are made by people who do believe that (i.e. they control the budget), and believe that doing so counts as "success". Which is why you can be a 40-something with 20 years experience as a hands-on programmer and can't get hired, because you are viewed by these people as a "failure" for not having made it into management in your 20s.

BigZaphod2• 17 years ago

Sometimes I dread getting older for political reasons... I'm 30 now and have not had (or wanted) a "real" management position. I guess I'm doomed.

alanthonyc• 17 years ago

I think it's even more than just an institutional bias, but a byproduct of the typical corporate organization structure.

I worked for a company who specifically made it clear that "rising up in the ranks" was not the only way to progress. People could stay out of the managerial ranks and theoretically still advance. However, this is not how it worked out in practice. The sense that managers were somehow better than the non-managers still pervaded.

I think it's a result of it being the managers' job to tell non-managers what to do, schedule their time, etc. Managers, by definition, exert control over the time and lives of non-managers. I think this affects the interpersonal relationships between the groups.

It might also have been affected by the perception that people outside the organization had. Managers have titles that confer on them a leadership position, so outsiders automatically gravitate to them as persons in charge. Perhaps it was a failure in execution by our organization to control expectations of our clients and customers, but I don't think so.

cturner2• 17 years ago

I don't think the problem exists as you describe it. If you're a 50 year old programmer, and go to interview with the same enthusiasm for discussing the projects you're working on and your problem-solving approaches as someone twenty five years younger than you, I expect you'll get the job on the basis of your experience.

You may get asked, "so you never thought about management?". But you can rehearse a response to that. It's like the one about when you've been in a difficult situation. Example, "In a way I was managing" - you worked on this project, planned it this way, made these decisions. Or you could describe aspects you liked about the pace or type of work you were doing. Talk about the problems that would have been easier if you had been leading strategy, and about the mechanisms you instead had to use to influence strategy, and the reason why the tradeoff worked for you better than if you'd been managing. Use the question as an opportunity to highlight particular technical skills that you brought to the team and mention the rule of comparative advantage.

A great thing about IT is that the tools are so cheap now that anyone who wants to prove themselves can run a home project at virtually no cost to demonstrate their strengths.

dabent• 17 years ago

I think it also leads to people rising to their level of incompetence. You might be a brilliant coder, but really not be good at handling a managerial post at all. Heads-down coding and management are two very different things, yet one is often treated as a reward for doing the other well.

nostrademons• 17 years ago

Here's one way of putting it that HN readers may identify with more: Treat every job as if it were your own startup.

If you're the founder of a company, you need to understand every nuance of the business, how it fits into its market niche, and the technology it uses. You have to convince other people to work for you; you have no implicit authority based on your title. Your effectiveness is based on how well you understand your mission as a company, and how well you can enable and motivate others to help you with that mission.

Those are all crucial skills in the corporate world as well.

They're also not necessarily mutually exclusive with being a coder/doer as well. All of the best managers I know come from a software engineering background. But it's about recognizing that other people can code & do just as well as you can, and leveraging what they're good at to help you and your organization achieve goals that neither one of you could do on your own.

zupatol• 17 years ago

It's generally a good attitude to try to see what problems need to be solved instead of just doing your best at what you're told to do. If you identify problems and suggest solutions, you will have more influence on the content of your job regardless if you want to move up the hierarchy or code cool applications. And if you get to implement a solution that you suggested, it will be much more fun than realizing other people's ideas.

Being in a job makes it relatively easy to see processes which always need some improvement. I wish it would be as easy to see how to improve things on the level of the society or the country. I can see many things that are wrong, but I have no idea how to fix anything.

gvb2• 17 years ago

"and suggest solutions" - that is key. There are plenty of people that bitch about problems, but precious few that can also propose solutions to alleviate the pain.

SandB0x• 17 years ago

A touch off topic:

For people in a management role: what do you use to demonstrate that you're good at your job? If you're interviewing for another company, is it a steady record of promotion? Successful projects (but is that due to you or a good team)?

If you're a coder and your job sucks you can at least build something to show at interviews or learn new languages on the side, but how can you do the same in management?

paulbaumgart• 17 years ago

The "former executive of a large famous company in the computer industry" made some interesting points about it: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9t05i/i_am_a_former_ex...

(HN discussion here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=875714 )

cturner2• 17 years ago

Do something to coordinate a voluntary organisation. Fundraise for your local dog protection society, and then when it's discussed at interview smile in a way that communicates you know it's a bit trivial, but show how you thought about the problem and how you were enthusiastic for the process of solving the problem.

tobtoh• 17 years ago

There are a number of ways to demonstrate 'success' as a manager. There are the 'hard numbers' - such as meeting your financial targets/cost figures, SLAs/performance targets, customer sat ratings, employee survey results/manager feedback results etc.

Then there are the harder to quantify results but which mainly revolve in being able to explain how you achieved (or attempted to achieve) the hard numbers.

A lot about being a good manager is seeing what needs to be improved and then actually making that improvement happen. It sounds pretty basic - but you will find most people do their job that they are hired to do and not much else. Many people know what is wrong with their area/company, are happy to complain about it, but won't go and work out how to fix the problem, and then put in the hard yards to make that happen. Alternatively, many people confuse putting in long hours with 'making a difference'.

A good manager should be able to identify and implement fundamental changes to how the business operates that makes it 'better' (happier staff, more productive, great profit/revenue etc, less overhead/red tape). Being able to explain what you identified and implemented these changes is how I demonstrate how good (or not) of a job I'm doing.

edw519• 17 years ago

there's an assumption that the ideal to strive for is to move up the chain into management as quickly as possible

This may have been true at one time, but not so much anymore, especially in IT. I prefer Michael Gerber's (of EMyth fame) description: there are three types of roles in a business, the entrepreneur, the manager, and the technician. If you run your own business, you better be all 3. But if you work for someone else, you can choose your path. Choosing the technician path is perfectly acceptable, and often preferable to the manager path. You get to focus on the critical path, do what you do best, and in many cases, earn more than your boss. Many programmers I know that made the switch to management are sorry they did; they miss the cool work and hate the meetings and bullshit. I made the switch back to technician. No one has ever questioned why.

halostatue• 17 years ago

I just got a promotion where I work; it's not the position that I really want (and management knows my goal), but it's the position that the organisation needs. I got this primarily because I stepped up and took ownership of a project when it needed to be done.

I've made mistakes, I'll make more mistakes, but I'm not trying to be on the management track. However, it is important enough to me that I be involved in the decisions being made that this promotion is a good thing. What decisions?

1. How to arrange the office (we were able to partially remove the cubicles to give my team a much more open area to work with). 2. What we're working on and the technical direction that we should take in doing so (I am negotiating features and scope directly with our product managers). 3. When and how to recognise my team for hard work (small recognition; I have no direct control over pay raises).

There's more, but it's really important to me that the people that I work with get the respect they deserve, and it's now officially my job to make sure that they get it. If they've got good ideas, I want to hear them so that I can be their advocate for those good ideas.

Even though I've written very little code over the last year, I'm still developing software. I just have other people who write most of the code.

jakarta2• 17 years ago

This article is funny.

It seems like both candidates worked at an investment firm, but neither were promoted for anything related to doing what investment firms are supposed to do -- finding good opportunities to invest in.

The 'good' candidate merely figured out how to use excel better and become a manager. The other guy completed tasks and made friends with fellow analysts.

I have to say, I doubt this place was training their analysts to be good stock pickers and instead pumped out mediocre returns while gobbling up fees off of their clients/investors.

Tawheed• 17 years ago

Here is probably how I'd break it down (based on what I've seen my friends in the finance industry do): Analyst = excel grunt work VP = budget grunt work Senior VP = investment work

FreeRadical• 17 years ago

This is very true, the junior levels are all about being an 'excel monkey'.

jakarta2• 17 years ago

It depends on the fund. All funds are different so it is tough to generalize, especially since they widely vary in size and responsibility.

I have a good friend that works for a large mutual fund who already pitches stocks to the PMs. Other guys I know are simply excel monkeys.

In investment banking, it is a bit different. Analysts and Associates are excel jockeys with the job translating towards sales/deal sourcing as you climb up the ladder.

DenisM• 17 years ago

Excel is the most dangerous weapon available to an aspiring carierist, I have accidentally used it myself to a great advantage. To understand this phenomenon you have to look at the world though the eyes of a manager: they have tons of smart people coming up with tons of interesting but not well-articulated or substantiated ideas - heavy on opinion light on tangibles. How can a manager pick good ideas out of endless stream? If he understood what you do he wouldn't need you to be there. So if you show up with actual data in Excel they love you right away.

toby• 17 years ago

"neither were promoted for anything related to doing what investment firms are supposed to do -- finding good opportunities to invest in."

"instead pumped out mediocre returns while gobbling up fees off of their clients/investors."

Your words succinctly capture the true nature of almost all financial services firms.

aresant• 17 years ago

If we all took the advice of this article, we'd manage ourselves right out of business.

In my experience rewarding the top performing "hamsters" nets greater retention and gains for the organizations productivity than a sole focus on rising managers.

knieveltech• 17 years ago

Or you might manage yourself into a highly efficient team structure with managers who are actively enabling their people instead of jealously guarding a fiefdom.

wallflower• 17 years ago

One of my co-workers decided to go the project management route. Our boss at the time was very supportive, letting him help with the project management tasks for the current release while still doing some coding duties. This was probably 5 years ago. He took on project management for another product for a year and half. And then, what really made his reputation, a high visibility, high risk project, etc. etc. Now managing 40 people. If I had to hazard a guess, he's making double what he did as a coder and happier because he was never happy coding/fixing bugs. If you're not happy coding, maybe management is a better fit for you. Beware that many of those who leap the chasm to management don't make it and those who do have to pull themselves up to the edge of the cliff with their fingernails.

In general, the people I know who were coders who have risen up in the ranks (probably 2,3 levels above me) in management had a game plan. They knew what they were trying to accomplish. They had a very good mentor. And they've done it.

byrneseyeview• 17 years ago

He began ordering lunch for the investment group's weekly meeting and making sure office supplies were ordered on time and in the right quantities. It was obvious he didn't mind pitching in where help was needed, and his supervisors began to notice his work ethic.

That's surprising. I would think that if someone did that at an investment bank, they'd get fired and replaced with an administrative assistant. Same work, less pay.

It also sounds like Ted made himself a real pest.

Emore• 17 years ago

From my take on the article, he did that _and_ his regular work.

"It took only a few minutes, so it didn't keep him from his other work"

Retric• 17 years ago

A lot of investments banking jobs average 12+ hour days. People waste a lot of time sitting at their desk with little to do, because they can't leave until their boss does, and their boss can't leave untill his boss leaves, and the people at the top got their by working late for years.

lhuang• 17 years ago

A quick point... Excel is a dangerous weapon because the vast majority of people, office drones included, don't know how to use it.

Really what it all comes down to is positioning yourself in a position where you aren't easily replaceable is really the "secret" to rising up on the corporate ladder. Networking and having good visibility into the company's overall workings and being a rockstar Excel jockey are really just two sides of the same coin.

From what I've seen, to rise above middle management you need both. A deep working knowledge of your tools and a good grasp of the big picture and all its moving pieces.

Also as other posters have mentioned some of the details in the story are suspect. Ordering supplies and lunch in IBD? Doesn't he have analysts to boss around and endless pitchbooks to compile?

efsavage• 17 years ago

I'm a little disappointed that this type of "you too can make sacrifices and work hard...for America!" propaganda made it to the top of HN, and really disappointed that it wasn't due to irony....

tkahn6• 17 years ago

Where are you getting this sentiment from? At what point does the article mention "work[ing] hard for America"?

kentosi• 17 years ago

I've got a few points and opinions to throw out here.

Firstly, after reading a lot of comments here it seems that many people are talking about how NOT to get into management and stay with the job you love (particularly in reference to programming).

Though this sentiment relates to this article I also find it somewhat disconnected in the context of Mark and Ted's opinions of their roles. A lot of commenters clearly seem like they're already in established programming roles with a degree of authority they enjoy, whereas these two guys in the article aren't. They're new to their company, and are striving to get to a place where they're satisfied (quite the opposite situation from many of the commenters).

Next, the general message I gathered from this article is that being successful in an organisation is apparently about having an awareness of your surroundings and making small yet persistent changes without getting in the way of others. Doing the opposite, which in Ted's case was shameless self-promotion, working hard, working overtime and being highly-strung with a drive to get further is not the way to succeed.

Now I find this VERY debatable, because a lot of it is subjective to the organisation's culture. What's to say that in another organisation that values aggressive proactiveness Ted would've been promoted instead, while Mark would have taken another year or two to move up? You cannot teach people how to be successful in management based on one case-study. Furthermore, each staff had no idea of their performance until the actual bonus time and hence were kept in the dark. There's something wrong here if Ted was convinced he was on the right track. Isn't this what mid-year reviews are all about?

The key messages I can see here are to have an aim, observe and adapt. Mark had an aim, which was to somehow distinguish himself from the pack. He observed his environment and he adapted. Ted had an aim too (promotion + bonus), which he clearly observed because he seemed to have worked his butt off. Having failed to get his promotion he now has to adapt (move to a new company, change his ways, whatever).

The story isn't finished yet. A year later tables could turn. Mark could get comfortable with where he is and slip, while Ted could make it very big.

sree_nair• 17 years ago

Sound Pretty biased to the management side of the story. If Ted & and mark were equally intelligent/smart, and knowing that ted worked hard to do better than his collegues , Soon he would have been the "go to member of his team". and mark would remain the networking guy.

Felt this article assumes Mark is double smart. i.e he can network, see & improve what other departments are doing & be the "go to member" of the team.

scrr• 17 years ago

Good article. Reminds me of the advice given by this Foerster guy. http://www.careeradvicebook.com/ Almost exactly what he recommends.

sriram_sun• 17 years ago

In my company, the unwritten rule is that incompetent managers usually take up the responsibility of ordering lunch and office supplies. Occasionally, some nonsensical "compliance" paper work is generated to produce the illusion of work.

How To Rise Fast At Work: A True Story

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