> Participants deeply understand the root goal and can autonomously choose the most important next things to work on
It didn't work that way on projects I led. Maybe everyone at Anthropic is a "10."
I was lucky when I had one person who could do that ("deeply understand the root goal and can autonomously choose the most important next things to work on"), who could take over if I went on vacation or got hit by a bus.
But I had reports who just wanted to work in their area of specialization, and had no curiosity whatsoever outside that. Or the guy who, no matter what I said, would never tell me when he had finished something - the only way I found out would be when I walked past his cube and saw him reading a science fiction book.
Don't tell me I should have just fired them, and gotten someone better. They did useful work, contributed to the project, and they were what the company had to work with. A big part of management is figuring out what people can do, want to do, are capable of doing in the future if encouraged.
Of course they should be fired if it’s been made clear that behavior is unacceptable (which it should be). Culture is what you let people get away with.
But seems like the company (and you) thought that was acceptable so who knows.
You play the hand you're dealt, or you get out of the game. Getting out of the game is always an option, of course. But you don't always have the ability to choose or change your cards.
You’re the one who dealt the cards! You’re the alleged (self-described) manager here. No wonder you got pushed around by somebody who was able to do their work. You seem to see yourself as the victim of circumstance rather than in control of anything.
They should probably have promoted the guy who was reading the book. 0% chance he'd let one of his reports make him do work that the report should've been doing themselves.
Of course you can't know that without knowing how valuable the employee's contributions are. If they're good, a good manager will walk by their cubicle a few times a day instead of firing them.
The kind of person who gets pushed around by their reports like this will end up walking by everyone’s cubicle a few times a day because they’re afraid to tell the bad employees why the good employee gets special treatment.
Read the guys story again. He wasn’t a manager. He was at best a babysitter.
If the guy reading novels is that valuable, fire the pushover manager and pay somebody $10/hr to walk by his cubicle.
Out of curiosity what kind of "extra" incentives did you have in the project succeeding (e.g. bonus, promotion, or stocks)? And what kind of incentives did the direct reports have?
It didn't work that way on projects I led. Maybe everyone at Anthropic is a "10."
I was lucky when I had one person who could do that ("deeply understand the root goal and can autonomously choose the most important next things to work on"), who could take over if I went on vacation or got hit by a bus.
But I had reports who just wanted to work in their area of specialization, and had no curiosity whatsoever outside that. Or the guy who, no matter what I said, would never tell me when he had finished something - the only way I found out would be when I walked past his cube and saw him reading a science fiction book.
Don't tell me I should have just fired them, and gotten someone better. They did useful work, contributed to the project, and they were what the company had to work with. A big part of management is figuring out what people can do, want to do, are capable of doing in the future if encouraged.