Stars and “Moving up”

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10862769

by dpweb • 11 years ago

5 3 11 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Going from individual contributor to “management”, you really get a fresh perspective. I complained for years to get promoted into a management role. I didn't complain very loudly, so it took a while.

Mainly, I felt like I couldn't grow without it. A management role would give me a fresh perspective, and I'd have more access to higher ups, who have smarts I don't have. Important things I can learn.

I found out - I was right.

Useful info about how businesses work and what is really important, is hidden from subordinates. A little more is concealed, every level you go down from the top. Nothing fishy - just the way it is.

So now, I manage a pretty big team and when things aren't going right with someone - I get to hear about it, from upper mgmt or clients. That’s a pressure individual contributors don't have to worry about - but I always put so much pressure on myself as an individual contributor my whole life, I don't really notice it too much. I still believe it's harder to work - than direct someone else's work - IF you're working your ass off - that is, you are a star.

It really boils down to stars. As a staff member, you should want to be one. As a manager, you want a team full of them. Recognizing a star is kinda like obscenity. “I know it when I see it”.

I'm older. Seems the younger/sv area crowd are more into "culture fit". That seems a little too college fraternity to me. People say "one asshole can ruin the team". I suspect that's bullshit. The stars on the team are going to be stars - they can't even help themselves.

This is one of the reasons why you can't have a totally flat org - you need managers. Managers (among other things) are there to deal with assholes. You can cool people out without firing them.

There's lots of managerial advice out there. It's hard to find any truly useful information out there, I'll say it all comes down to stars. They are making it happen.

nspassov• 11 years ago

Thank you for sharing your perspective. I find some contradiction in your sentences and this question comes up:

As a manager, can you have both a team full of stars _and_ maintain a hierarchy? If yes, how?

The definition of star is also a bit vague: a person with lots of knowledge and experience can stand out as a star, but in my experience a junior person with less experience having the right way of thinking can also be a star.

Hierarchy means having only a few people steering the vessel, the rest need to align with the leadership, or there is no team. What does it mean to be a star in a hierarchy with the top-down approach?

Still, even in a team full of stars they all need to align among one other, or it's not possible to achieve a common goal. Stars are opinionated because they have knowledge, but that usually comes with an ego, so they need to work around that.

relkor• 11 years ago

Eh, in my mind the value of professional managers is to provide a bullshit buffer between the stars. Managing is not as much about steering the vessel as choosing when and where to set your sail before the wind. Individual contributors are the profit centers of any organization. They create the actual product that the customers purchase. While the concept of everyone growing as a person is in vogue right now, that is not the purpose of a company. It is expensive to get the individual contributor to work around their ego, so we use professionals to provide the same result and timeshare them over many employees to lower the unit costs. A manager's primary reason for existence is to remove obstacles from the individual contributors in whatever shape or form that may be. If the manager needs to handle all communication between two prima donna developers, then that is removing an obstacle to generating value for the customer. A manager is like an personal assistant and a parent rolled into one. The manager keeps stars focus on efforts that directly benefit the customer rather than letting them wander off into intellectual rabbit holes of turing tarpits, while also making sure that there is paper in the printer, and pens on the desk. There is a lot more complexity that I am glossing over, but really great managers are the ones that ask the question, "what is preventing my guys from delivering value to the customer?" and then directly and systematically addressing the answers to that question. The really good ones have solved all the big problems and are then worried about the little things like having pens.

Additionally, there is really no need to use force of will to bind together a group of people behind a common vision with the current population and ease of communication offered by the internet. Either everyone is already capable of contributing value to the organization, or they are fired. There are 7 billion people alive now and that number is growing. If you cannot find hordes of people willing to work on challenges in your sector, what does that tell you about the demand for that product?

eecks• 11 years ago

So a star is a person who is good at their job..

Going from individual contributor

What did you do?

This is one of the reasons why you can't have a totally flat org - you need managers.

Look a Valve, a flat company, who are pretty successful. That proves your point factually incorrect.

There's lots of managerial advice out there. It's hard to find any truly useful information out there, I'll say it all comes down to stars. They are making it happen.

So if it all down to stars, then what is the purpose of the manager?

Seems the younger/sv area crowd are more into "culture fit". That seems a little too college fraternity to me. People say "one asshole can ruin the team". I suspect that's bullshit.

Culture leads to teamwork which leads to project flow. Nothing is better than a project flowing well.