October 17, 2015 at 11:56 am
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Bad Management
October 19, 2015 at 5:46 am
I have seen extremely talented software engineers leave companies because of a bad manager. These were non-nonsense programmers that wanted nothing more than to do a good job. The bad manager interfered with that and the programmers simply went elsewhere.
October 19, 2015 at 6:46 am
Steve, I think you are seriously understating the potential damage a bad manager can do.
The two worst-case scenarios are managers who actually increase divisiveness on a team, eliminating synergy and reducing the team's output to less than the sum of the individual contributions, and when managers do not manage workloads and priorities, so that critical tasks remain untouched while resources are expended on less-important tasks (or allowed to sit idle, waiting to be assigned work). Both of those are potential project-killers, and both of those are mismanagement-induced.
October 19, 2015 at 6:58 am
I've seen bad management result in a complete turnover of the entire development staff within 3 months. That is, no dev who was working there at the start of the 3 months was still there at the end.
I hate to think what that cost the company in terms of recruitment and lost productivity.
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability
October 19, 2015 at 7:20 am
Unfortunately I've seen bad managers go off on sick and watched as productivity improved.
October 19, 2015 at 7:31 am
GilaMonster (10/19/2015)
I've seen bad management result in a complete turnover of the entire development staff within 3 months. That is, no dev who was working there at the start of the 3 months was still there at the end.I hate to think what that cost the company in terms of recruitment and lost productivity.
It's bad enough when an organization has bad management, but to couple that with an IT department where practically everyone is new to the business... I pitty the patsy who gets hired there. There is an old proverb which states: "A crisis is an opportunity riding the dangerous wind.", but one would really have to struggle hard to extract opportunity from that particular crisis.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
October 19, 2015 at 7:35 am
Bad managers tend to get identifed after all the critical highly-talented people leave. This has a lasting effect inside and outside the company.
The employees that are left are less skilled and more fearful of losing their jobs so they put up with things that the confident employees won't. So the manager can keep their job longer because they spin why those people left.
Outside the company the word gets out that it's a bad place to work and talent won't apply to fill the empty slots.
Bad managers don't listen to employees. That's one of the things that makes them bad. They also tend to be decent at playing politics which makes it easier to present things to upper management so they keep their jobs.
Bad managers are bad for the business. Period.
October 19, 2015 at 7:37 am
Stack Overflow is one of the more challenging sites I've visited on the internet.
412-977-3526 call/text
October 19, 2015 at 7:43 am
Eric M Russell (10/19/2015)
GilaMonster (10/19/2015)
I've seen bad management result in a complete turnover of the entire development staff within 3 months. That is, no dev who was working there at the start of the 3 months was still there at the end.I hate to think what that cost the company in terms of recruitment and lost productivity.
It's bad enough when an organization has bad management, but to couple that with an IT department where practically everyone is new to the business... I pitty the patsy who gets hired there. There is an old proverb which states: "A crisis is an opportunity riding the dangerous wind.", but one would really have to struggle hard to extract opportunity from that particular crisis.
Didn't help that they hired cheap to replace the people who left.
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability
October 19, 2015 at 8:02 am
GilaMonster (10/19/2015)
Eric M Russell (10/19/2015)
GilaMonster (10/19/2015)
I've seen bad management result in a complete turnover of the entire development staff within 3 months. That is, no dev who was working there at the start of the 3 months was still there at the end.I hate to think what that cost the company in terms of recruitment and lost productivity.
It's bad enough when an organization has bad management, but to couple that with an IT department where practically everyone is new to the business... I pitty the patsy who gets hired there. There is an old proverb which states: "A crisis is an opportunity riding the dangerous wind.", but one would really have to struggle hard to extract opportunity from that particular crisis.
Didn't help that they hired cheap to replace the people who left.
Using the twisted logic of a bad manager, if all of your development staff quits, then it presents an excellent opportunity to replace them with cheaper and more tractable staff. That anti-pattern is fatal for an organization.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
October 19, 2015 at 8:06 am
Eric M Russell (10/19/2015)
GilaMonster (10/19/2015)
Eric M Russell (10/19/2015)
GilaMonster (10/19/2015)
I've seen bad management result in a complete turnover of the entire development staff within 3 months. That is, no dev who was working there at the start of the 3 months was still there at the end.I hate to think what that cost the company in terms of recruitment and lost productivity.
It's bad enough when an organization has bad management, but to couple that with an IT department where practically everyone is new to the business... I pitty the patsy who gets hired there. There is an old proverb which states: "A crisis is an opportunity riding the dangerous wind.", but one would really have to struggle hard to extract opportunity from that particular crisis.
Didn't help that they hired cheap to replace the people who left.
Using the twisted logic of a bad manager, if all of your development staff quits, then it presents an excellent opportunity to replace them with cheaper and more tractable staff. That anti-pattern is fatal for an organization.
Or replace them with top-end contractors, well that's what I have seen in past experience.
October 19, 2015 at 8:09 am
Some context for the opening quote in his blog post:
"In February of 2015, I was promoted to Engineering Manager at Stack Overflow. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
in case you didn't follow the link:
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy#Chapter_1_2
Chapter 1[edit]
The story so far:
In the beginning the Universe was created.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
I don't share the same sense of humor as I think was trying to be conveyed here.
412-977-3526 call/text
October 19, 2015 at 8:34 am
In the past I did quite a bit of contract work. It is not unreasonable to say that some (but not all) companies that need contract IT are often the ones that have driven out the talented staff. I've found that if the company has poor mid-level management, it usually comes from poor senior management.
But, to Steve's point about branding yourself. Do as much as you can.
The more you are prepared, the less you need it.
October 19, 2015 at 8:58 am
BL0B_EATER (10/19/2015)
Eric M Russell (10/19/2015)
GilaMonster (10/19/2015)
Eric M Russell (10/19/2015)
GilaMonster (10/19/2015)
I've seen bad management result in a complete turnover of the entire development staff within 3 months. That is, no dev who was working there at the start of the 3 months was still there at the end.I hate to think what that cost the company in terms of recruitment and lost productivity.
It's bad enough when an organization has bad management, but to couple that with an IT department where practically everyone is new to the business... I pitty the patsy who gets hired there. There is an old proverb which states: "A crisis is an opportunity riding the dangerous wind.", but one would really have to struggle hard to extract opportunity from that particular crisis.
Didn't help that they hired cheap to replace the people who left.
Using the twisted logic of a bad manager, if all of your development staff quits, then it presents an excellent opportunity to replace them with cheaper and more tractable staff. That anti-pattern is fatal for an organization.
Or replace them with top-end contractors, well that's what I have seen in past experience.
OK, but at the moment we're talking about a scenario where practically the entire IT development staff walk out the door. Top-end contractors are useful for filling specific gaps during the analysis, architecture, and development phase of projects, but they can't replace full-time DevOps staff for the day to day stuff. Also, contractors are more likely to walk out the door when confronted with an impossible situation than fill-time staff are. Top-end contractors are able to sniff out bad management from the start and pass the "opportunity" over, so the organization isn't likely to acquire them in the first place. Unless the contractor is an "ambulance chaser" who is truely interested in taking on this type of challenge, but ambulance chasers are just hacks who are in it only short term for the money. They don't solve anything.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
October 19, 2015 at 9:05 am
If these were publicly traded companies, would you short their stock?
412-977-3526 call/text
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