Conscious unbossing

https://www.robertwalters.co.uk/insights/news/blog/conscious-unbossing.html

by gpi • 2 years ago

113 121 2 years ago

robertwalters.co.uk

jghn3• 2 years ago

Does anyone really aspire to be a middle manager? That's like the worst spot in the hierarchy

nine_zeros2• 2 years ago

People with self-esteem issues who want to fill a deep-seated insecurity about social status find the org-chart as an adequate way to fill up their needs.

The other is MBA grads/project managers who paid big bucks to be able to get a high paying job producing nothing but need a place in the company.

jghn3• 2 years ago

But why wouldn't they aspire to be upper management?

klodolph8• 2 years ago

One meets people who are really trying to look important by having more reports than the other managers. People who use Linkedin, say “best practices” without irony, and like to tell stories about what programming was like 25 years ago when they were a junior engineer shipping Windows software.

Then, mixed in with those folks, are a few people who are good at working with upper management, understand how the machine works, and build a pipeline of projects.

And a few rare people who fix departments, create long-term programs, and know how to train managers. You don’t meet many in this last group, though.

hn_go_brrrrr• 2 years ago

What's wrong with "best practices"? I get the feeling the best practices you're complaining about are TPS reports, whereas I'm thinking more like "don't ship to prod on Fridays".

GuB-42• 2 years ago

Because that's how you become an upper manager.

Beside that, some people simply like the job. They like to manage people they actually know, without being too technical. Higher than that and you may lose human contact with people who are doing the job, lower than that and you are doing the job yourself.

benhurmarcel• 2 years ago

Well in most companies it pays more than being an IC or line manager. Sure it sucks but you get more money for it.

jrmg• 2 years ago

This is presented as revolutionary, but it’s not clear to me that the results would’ve been any different if they’d surveyed the older generations at the same age.

cjbgkagh• 2 years ago

Reminds me of an Onion Skit from 16 years ago; Youths don’t want to participate in office politics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHm7-Z4spHw

Over2Chars4• 2 years ago

The middle manager, by some corporate career paths, is the top of the IC food chain. Ergo managers are usually paid better than the top IC. This is, of course, stupidity at it's finest, draining top IC talent into PHB mediocrity. A few companies don't do this, they are the smarter ones. My impression is that this is not typical.

roughly2• 2 years ago

managers are usually paid better than the top IC

This has not been my experience most places I’ve worked - you’ve gotta get a couple rungs up the management ladder (director or such) before the pay scale gets above staff and sr staff.

(It’s how we wound up with a few people at a previous gig managing teams as staff engineers - they didn’t want to take the pay cut for the title.)

WantonQuantum3• 2 years ago

I started as a developer at the age of 21 and in the next few years moved up a few levels until I wasn't developing any more. I decided I didn't like it and so left the company for a dev role somewhere else. Same thing happened again until I realised that I just want to be a dev. I'm 52 now and loving being a dev.

datavirtue2• 2 years ago

Getting some level of management and learning there is no authority of responsibility given to the role. It's just another type of task handler. The disillusionment is common when people crave responsibility and realize it isn't forthcoming.

Had you been granted the authority to oversee a critical responsibility/project/initiative you might have been imbued.

It's very exciting, like a drug, to be given responsibility for which you know that you are immediately shit canned (by your friends no less) if it doesn't go well or rewarded handsomely if you get it over the finish line. You have to hold key peoples' (founders/investors/executives) trust to get those roles because your success/failure ripples into them right quick.

sanderjd4• 2 years ago

Yep. Any time I see an article that is "generation ___ thinks / does ___", my first smell test is whether the headline could just be "young people think / do ___". This one fails that smell test, as most do.

hinkley2• 2 years ago

Agreed. 52% sounds an awful lot like a normal distribution.

c0balt• 2 years ago

From knowing a few swe/sysadmin people who have eventually ended up or choose the management path in team lead/middle management, most of them didn't plan to become managers but it more less happened to be a natural career progression at some point.

In my experience these people also mostly are effective managers because they have practical domain knowledge on the projects/teams they are managing. I see it as a normal thing to progress into, if your people skills are up to the task. A senior IC role is also nice but can be harder to get in certain organizations (however may be significantly less stressful).

Over2Chars4• 2 years ago

They go for the $. Or else they figure that they'll "be their own boss", get to push their opinions on others (not realizing that this is a difficult position, and you might have a bias towards your own answers even if they're not the best outcome), and get paid more.

Even if "they are the most effective managers" initially, it won't last.

As the pressures to sit in endless meetings, tow the upper management line, create endless spreadsheets, they become less and less knowledgeable in their domain. I've had great managers who were "hands on" domain experts, and some who weren't. Luckily, the corporate trend seems to be towards so-called "flat hierarchies" and to fire these chair warmers.

I for one welcome our AI middle manager overlords.

bhaney• 2 years ago

I would have expected a higher percentage

Conscat• 2 years ago

Perhaps the remaining 48% just want to be employed.

digitaltrees• 2 years ago

said every generation ever. and yet...

Over2Chars4• 2 years ago

With any luck, middle managers will be replaced by AI within a few years.

The dumbest chat bot provides comparable advice and is less demotivating.

Not that most middle managers are worth more than a bucket of spit, and many are actively harmful to a companies bottom line (e.g. see Board disagreements about Intel layoffs and the role of risk-adverse middle managers in tanking the once mighty Intel. Undoubtedly, a similar phenom tanked Nissan).

brightball• 2 years ago

Nobody wants to be a middle manager. I’d be concerned if anyone ever wanted to be a middle manager.

If you’re not C level and somebody reports to you, you’re a middle manager though.

WantonQuantum3• 2 years ago

Middle manager is not a precise term so opinions on what is and is not a middle manager differ but in larger companies there are definitely senior managers and executive management.

jonahx• 2 years ago

All of the replies to GP sound like desperate attempts not to self-identify as a middle manager.

GP's definition matches common usage: To people not invested in this game, if you are manager at a large company and not C-suite, you're a middle manager.

roughly2• 2 years ago

Typically “middle manager” means you’ve specifically got managers reporting to you - you’re a manager managing managers reporting to a manager: “middle manager”

fsckboy• 2 years ago

not precisely true. the "line managers" reporting to a middle manager frequently do not have the word "manager" in their title, leaving middle managers as the lowest level of actual managers.

line managers are a bit like NCO's (sargeants, corporals, non-commissioned officers) in the military; they have experience doing to the thing that they people they oversee do. The officer they report to may not.

klodolph8• 2 years ago

If you’re not C level and somebody reports to you, you’re a middle manager though.

You’re a middle manager if you’re not in “upper management”, but managers report to you. It’s called “middle” management because it’s between upper management (C-level and VPs, probably) and first-line management / frontline management. Start with all managers, select the ones in the middle, that’s middle management.

hinkley2• 2 years ago

I don’t know if the military is copying civilian patterns or vice versa. But in the military the Line Manager is a noncommissioned officer, and if they want to stay that role forever that’s fine. As long as you can keep up with your unit. But commissioned officers are more “up or out”. If you don’t have a trajectory that gets you to stop being a lieutenant someday, then odds are very good you’ll be encouraged to leave. Not everyone has to end up a two star general, but you aren’t meant to clog up the ranks for people younger than you who have the potential to be one.

The Gervais Principle suggests that you keep a few of these around in case upper management tries to mark their territory by asking for consequences (usually for their own decisions) so you have someone to throw under the bus. I don’t think that’s wrong, but conservation is often very different from thriving. It’s an artificial state that is still precarious and lacking agency for the subject.

__MatrixMan__3• 2 years ago

Even working near a middle manager means you're working somewhere with three or more layers of management, which suggests a concerning enthusiasm for hierarchy and smells a bit too much like Omelas for comfort.

erikerikson2• 2 years ago

Omelas

Is this a reference to Ursula LeGuin's short story?

darth_avocado2• 2 years ago

Everyone wants to be middle management. You get paid more and Senior or Staff level is no longer your terminal career level (and therefore pay potential) as it is for most IC. Your performance evaluation becomes more subjective and less quantifiable, allowing you to hide your mediocrity and put it on others. Even if you’re same level as your ICs and the pay is same, you still hold the power in the relationship. If you’re bad manager, all the ICs can do is provide upward feedback, and that too is only at some workplaces. If you’re a bad manager, you can still fire an IC for “poor performance” any time. If company/product does poorly, ICs usually see the consequences. If the company/product does well, the management gets the pat on the back.

Even though I despise middle management, that is the only path I see forward if I want to continue being employed once I’m in my 40s.

sanderjd4• 2 years ago

Everyone wants to be middle management.

False.

You get paid more

So what? Getting paid more was far from my primary concern when working at a big company. I wanted interesting work with people I respected and liked. The pay was more than good enough as an IC.

The rest of this is machiavellian bullshit that most people don't care about.

datavirtue2• 2 years ago

As a middle manager you are listening to inane complaints from arrested development cases (ICs) all day. It is very difficult to be polite. 90% of the job is holding your tongue.

aetherson• 2 years ago

Clearly the workforce couldn't support a situation in which almost half of everyone was a manager, so...

Over2Chars4• 2 years ago

Geez, did we work at the same companies?

d--b• 2 years ago

So 48% would not mind being a middle manager? That’s a lot of middle management

timcobb• 2 years ago

That's my company!

freehorse• 2 years ago

The more middle managers you have, the more middle managers you need to manage those middle managers.

asielen2• 2 years ago

In my 15 years in small and mid-sized tech, I've found the most useless managers are senior managers.

Good team leads and second line managers can make or break an organization. But they are the least respected roles at a company and gets thrown under the bus first. Most companies don't invest anything in training new managers or setting clear roles and responsibilities for managers.

Senior management never faces any accountability but can make big massive changes to an org without consideration for implementation.

UncleMeat• 2 years ago

This is my experience at big tech too. I've had great managers. When I've managed people, they've appeared to genuinely say that I was doing a good job. I've interacted with one Director and one Vice President ever who seemed like they were worth a damn.

ahefner• 2 years ago

Oh, I don't know - in my (admittedly limited and very individual / company-specific) experience, the senior management was hard to relate to from the perspective of us rank and file, but clearly had the Sword of Damocles over their head at all times, and tended to get swept away arbitrarily every few years as the winds of corporate politics changes direction. It seemed to require some exceptional execution (or luck) to defer this cycle for even a year or two.

Depends what you mean by senior management, of course. I'm thinking mostly the "VP / SVP of Engineering" type role, and to a lesser degree, one hop down, the "Senior Director" folks, who seemed to be subject to the same phenomenon but on a slightly slower cycle.

HappMacDonald2• 2 years ago

My understanding is that all corporate positions above rank and file — and especially the C-levels — live in a meat grinder where the only viabile strat is "figure out how to kill competition on the corporate chaos/ladder before it kills you".

Of course this acts as a filtering mechanism to refine psychopathy and their decision tree about how to treat their labor force, the communities their corporations exist within, their customers, and even their investors reflect how they've treated people to get where they are already: exploit and discard.

bjt12345• 2 years ago

I wish.

The higher up the rank you go in my company, the more recognizable the faces are from 10,15,even 20 years ago.

Sure, they shuffle the deckchairs, but the turnover and redundancies below them is orders of more chaotic, and I dont understand what it takes to clean house at the senior management level.

klodolph8• 2 years ago

I’ve worked at some companies with senior managers that were really good at training other managers and good at fixing problems at a department / org level. Rare, but it happens.

parpfish• 2 years ago

The most important managers are the ones that serve as an actual translation layer bridging the gap between corporate business speak and developers.

I’m reminded of a recent HN article talking about how bad abstractions are actually just indirection and complicate things whereas good abstractions hide complexity and make things neat and modular

klodolph8• 2 years ago

At my most recent jobs, it’s been middle and lower management that was most prone to corporate business speak, and upper management had an incredible and somewhat fearsome ability to cut through bullshit. Depends on who your managers are, what company you’re in, and what department or org your team is part of.

Some recent teams I was on the middle managers spoke clearly and directly, but the frontline managers equivocated, were evasive, or even told lies. TBH I think it was just another case of Peter Principle. The middle managers were good managers who got put in charge of organizations, but they couldn’t train or develop good managers below them.

sam_bristow• 2 years ago

I think this is the article you're refering to [1]. The most frustrating manager I've had felt like they were just a layer of indirection to the rest of the business. Every meeting I was in with them was basically a readout of another meeting. No new insights or synthesis of new information.

I have also had managers who are great at linking the wider strategic goals of the organisation to their team's work. They were rare and worth their weight in gold.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42506984

jasdi• 2 years ago

Depends on the problem the group face. Simple problem with known solutions Accountability makes a diff.

But we know there are hard problems, where the group itself doesn't have a solution or agree on the same solution. Keeping groups together is a hard problem.

zeroonetwothree• 2 years ago

What percent of workers are middle managers? 10% or less I imagine…

bigfishrunning• 2 years ago

I honestly think it's like 50%

extr• 2 years ago

Try again without the phrase “middle manager” which has a derogatory meme attached to it, as evidenced by this very comment section. If you think you’ve invented a better (scalable) system than having ICs report up through a hierarchy with defined scope and responsibilities, you have probably just reinvented “management”.

saikia81• 2 years ago

I think commenters are being critical of the hierarchycal system with so many levels. It really differs per country.

theideaofcoffee2• 2 years ago

Found the middle manager. The current system must not be criticized because no perfect replacement has been found. C’mon.

There are deep flaws with how hierarchical organizations are run and how incompetent people are put in the positions with most capacity to do damage. Those ideas most definitely need to be discussed, even if there is no clear winner in terms of how to definitively improve things.

Imnimo• 2 years ago

This doesn't really relate to the question of middle management, but it's interesting to compare the Canadian and British versions of this article:

https://www.robert-walters.ca/insights/news/blog/Concious-un...

https://www.robertwalters.co.uk/insights/news/blog/conscious...

They both have comments ostensibly from "Lucy Bisset, Director of Robert Walters North" and "Martin Fox, Managing Director of Robert Walters Canada". But the two have eerily similar thoughts on these result:

Lucy Bisset, Director of Robert Walters North comments: “Gen-Z are known for their entrepreneurial mindset – preferring to bring their ‘whole self’ to projects and spend time cultivating their own brand and approach, rather than spending time managing others.
Martin Fox, Managing Director of Robert Walters Canada comments: “Gen-Z are known for their entrepreneurial mindset. They prefer to bring their ‘whole self’ to projects, focusing on building their own brand and approach rather than managing others.

amiga386• 2 years ago

This is extremely dangerous to our democracy (according to Sinclair Broadcast Group): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZggCipbiHwE&t=33s

magneticnorth• 2 years ago

Oh, huh, good catch. More of their quotes are just theaurus-substitution rephrasings:

Lucy concludes: “It’s clear mid-level management remains a lynchpin of any organisation, and to keep these roles filled employers need to innovate their strategies to make them more attractive ...
Martin concludes: “It’s clear that mid-level management is a cornerstone of any organization. To fill these roles, employers will need to rethink their strategies to make them more appealing ...

And no by-line on the article - no actual human is claiming responsibility for writing this.

ryandrake2• 2 years ago

This is kind of a dirty semi-secret of corporate PR. When a press release or other company-authored article includes "[Person's Name] says [Thing]," there is not necessarily a Person with that name, and even if there is, that Person didn't literally say the Thing. "Thing" is the narrative that the company wants to push, and they attribute "Thing" to some name and publish it as if it's a news article with a quote.

I was a high-ish level product manager in a medium sized company once, and they would put P.R. "articles" out all the time that "quoted" me by name saying things I never said or wrote. Internally, P.R. would just E-mail me and ask if they could use my name in a press piece, and I said sure. Suddenly I "said" this and was "quoted" with that.

These kinds of articles get copy-pasted in different publications and only the name gets changed.

dylan6042• 2 years ago

It's funny when the comedy shows to superedits of a media company's affiliates all reading from the same script. You also see it on edits from CNN and FOX where all of the "hosts" (I refuse to call them anchors) all use the exact same lines.

The "party line" is very obvious as long as you're willing to see it. If party line is too political, then the sports version is that the playbook has been well studied.

newswasboring• 2 years ago

This comment section is hard to read for someone joining as middle manager on Monday.

__MatrixMan__3• 2 years ago

You'll be different. We believe in you.

FigurativeVoid• 2 years ago

It would be fascinating to see how this number trends over time. Many of my peers never wanted to be managers, but then they had children. Suddenly they were much more open to being managers and getting the associated pay increases.

I suspect this number trends down over time.

jarsin• 2 years ago

Who can blame them after the previous generation gave them a perfect preview of life as a middle manager via Office and Office Space.

sanderjd4• 2 years ago

That was the generation before that. Everyone in Office Space and the managers in The Office are all (at least) two generations ahead of Gen Z.

Time flies!

herval• 2 years ago

I doubt this wasn’t also true for young millenials or genx or boomers. 20 year-olds don’t generally want to be middle managers.

Animats• 2 years ago

A few more years, and Microsoft Middle Manager 2.0 will be doing this job.

AIs will take over middle management simply because they're faster and have more bandwidth than humans. They don't have to be smarter, just better coordinated. As Patton once said, "A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week."

Programs already run lower management. At Uber and Amazon, the computer is the foreman.

danjl2• 2 years ago

I'd go further and claim that it is easier to replace a middle manager, heck even a senior manager, using AI than it is to replace the ICs. As AI context windows increase to the point where they can ingest the important company documents and communications, the skills of an LLM are the ideal replacement for management.

dragonwriter• 2 years ago

The primary function of any level of manager is to be an individual and distinct responsibility (including accountability) point. LLMs don't work for that.

kazinator• 2 years ago

Without data about what previous generation said to exactly the same questions, at the same age, the conclusions comparing GenZ attitudes to those of prior generations are completely meaningless.

Maybe GenX youth and young Boomers before them also thought management was fuddy-duddy.

Hippies, hello?

It wasn't GenZ that produced the movie Office Space, The Office sitcom or Dilbert.

(Speaking of which, exposure to these kinds of cultural artifacts likely plays a role in the GenZ outlook.)

For as long as I can remember, corporate management has been ridiculed in popular culture. It's a set of common tropes.

A kindergarten kid saying they want to be a middle manager when they grow up can be predicted to be an instant howler.

nytesky• 2 years ago

I was going to say: what do you expect of the generation weaned on the Office? It’s been part of their zeitgeist since birth. I saw a GenZ today with a gag Dunder Mifflin rear view mirror badge hanger.

zeckalpha• 2 years ago

Phrasing of these headlines matter:

48% of GenZ professionals want to be middle managers.

naruhodo• 2 years ago

Or "less than 49% of GenZ professionals want to be middle managers" and "some of GenZ professionals are ambivalent about it".

Leary• 2 years ago

GenZ boss and a mini. GenZ boss and a mini.

ITB• 2 years ago

That’s fitting because hierarchies would not work if those 52% wanted to be managers.

martin-t• 2 years ago

I wish cooperatives were more common and that society as a whole had more organizational memory and experience how to scale them.

cedws• 2 years ago

I'm 23. I don't want to 'manage' anybody. I want to be in a team where I'm a facilitator and advocate. If people need to be 'managed' that is a red flag to me, and it isn't worth the slightly better paycheck.

jarofgreen• 2 years ago

This comment cuts straight to my immediate thought when reading - did they dig into the separate bits that people thought a managers job entailed, and which bits where appealing or not?

Cos apparently* "double the amount (30%) would opt for a flat, team-based structure if given the choice" so team work is seen as important.

So what functions would people like in a team? Mentors? Facilitators? Which of these might they actually want to do themselves if it wasn't seen as tainted by the phrase "middle management"?

* I can't see any link to actual data or what questions were used, so we are all working of a thin PR statement which isn't the best.

j45• 2 years ago

That's fine, just have to become better than being middle managers.`

Seattle3503• 2 years ago

This requires age period cohort analysis. The article asserts cohort is responsible, but it is just as likely that gen z will age into an appetite for managing.

Gen Z might just have a accurate self assessment of their management abilities.

anovikov• 2 years ago

It's easy to see why. Middle managers are kicked around by so many forces outside of their control, are not respected by anyone anymore, and are badly underpaid. A half-decent engineer always makes more and does a lot more fulfilling work with a lot less bullshit factor in it.

dboreham• 2 years ago

Does anyone want to be a middle manager?

mensetmanusman• 2 years ago

Middle managers are information nodes for large scale human decision making mechanisms.

If it were possible to interact individually with everyone in zero time, everyone could report to the king. Until then…

theideaofcoffee2• 2 years ago

My kingdom for a middle manager that was usefully connected to the organization like that and who could make information flow. I would love for the feeling of information coming to me through someone like that. Alas, that has -never- been my experience in organizations huge and tiny. It’s always through side channels. Always always always.

Maybe it’s me, maybe it’s my bad luck, maybe lots of things, but the only thing a middle manager has been there for was to push paper up to the equally clueless layer above them and actively interfere in good work getting done.

DidYaWipe• 2 years ago

Stop using these idiotic labels.

retrofrost• 2 years ago

I think the biggest systemic issue with middle management is that its mostly a political position that comes with political challenges. Middle managers have to be the political interfaces that try to implement and affect policy given to them by upper management, all the while giving feedback on said policy from the line workers to upper management. Good middle managers can really shield good workers from a lot of upper management idiocy. Bad middle managers exacerbate those issues. Its a thankless position that can really make things better, but often is stuck doing a mediocre job due to lack of training and bad circumstances.

xivzgrev• 2 years ago

The youngest working generation doesn’t see the value of middle managers. Imagine that.

Experience is a wise teacher.

johngossman• 2 years ago

This is an ad for a company trying to sell their career advice services.

nirav72• 2 years ago

The oldest Gen-z is still in their late 20s or early 30s. Could be that could change in about 10 years?

jimsimmons• 2 years ago

"it is never too late to start a career in middle management" goes the old joke

nurettin• 2 years ago

When political polls are split 50/50, it is a point of contention. When genz answers a yes/no question with a slight bias towards yes, it is decisively against middle management.

SebFender• 2 years ago

Outside of the article style and comments - middle management is basically a sink hole that if you don't get out fast - you get stuck.

Conscious unbossing

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