
The unspoken truth about managing geeks (2009) - geophertz
https://www.computerworld.com/article/2527153/opinion-the-unspoken-truth-about-managing-geeks.html
======
NikolaNovak
The point about Respect is something I struggle to appropriately convey and
convince my non-technical friends.

In any technical team I've been part of, implicitly, respect and competence
were far more relevant than organizational authority. Any technically
competent person I've met, upon meeting a new lead or manager, will
consciously or subconsciously evaluate "Does this person know their stuff?".
If yes, they'll work for & with the lead. If not, they'll route around them -
most IT Pros are surprisingly skilled at "Upward management".

~~~
looping__lui
I like your comment; I liked the Humility, Respect and Trust Framework from
“Debugging Teams” a lot as well.

However, what I also found is: geeks don’t care about the value they are
creating/not creating all too often.

If you are on the “other side of the table tasked to extract value from an
engineering/science team” the amount of disrespect that you are facing from
geeks is sometimes almost unbearable.

As much as I hear things like “education or opinions do not matter - but facts
and data and demonstrated competency” this only lasts as long as the people
saying it feel it’s a waiver to demonstrate some “tolerance and openness as
long as it means they got to do what they want”.

What a lot of geeks don’t understand: yes, management also figures out “who is
more results and product driven” and will shy away giving the “most impactful
tasks” to the condescending folks...

A lot of managers would enjoy their work more having a bit more technical
expertise; but the same is true - and even more so - for geeks.

~~~
perl4ever
"geeks don’t care about the value they are creating/not creating all too
often."

This is a two way street - mostly you don't actually want to hire someone who
cares about the business, because they're not as easily exploited. I'm saying,
yes, not caring about business value is a negative from one perspective, but
culturally organizations have adapted to that and the person best suited to
being plugged in to a position is someone who will work tirelessly on whatever
you give them without caring one way or the other about the big picture. If
they actually are interested in value, then they are going to be demotivated
on a doomed or dysfunctional or immoral project.

~~~
looping__lui
This sounds like a dysfunctional company to me.

If somebody is a kick-ass programmer AND understands what value he is adding -
he will be very successful at the company I am working right now. If he
disagrees with his manager AND is right even more so.

But the experience I made is that the “feedback and speaking” up is more
driven by personal preference and “what do I want to work on” instead of
business and customer need.

~~~
perl4ever
"This sounds like a dysfunctional company to me."

Well, I hesitate to call something "dysfunctional" if it works. It becomes a
subjective value judgment.

Different companies have succeeded in different ways.

~~~
looping__lui
This does sound dysfunctional in a way that decision making is obviously
happening more compartmentalized and individual ownership is severely limited.

There is a reason why many super successful companies have values/culture:
shift ownership and decision making as much to the people at the forefront as
possible to avoid “managing them from the top”.

Empowering engineers and scientists to develop a sense and say in product
priorities is great, extremely difficult but speaks for a company that values
contributions beyond a “specialization/niche”

------
remmargorp64
I especially liked this point:

"IT pros always and without fail, quietly self-organize around those who make
the work easier, while shunning those who make the work harder, independent of
the organizational chart."

------
mips_avatar
I strongly agree with the author about the importance of having a
mentor/manager who is a great technical sounding board. I need the help
understanding what the business direction is, or else I will spend my energy
working on a problem that the business doesn’t care about. I want to know that
if I figure out an improvement for area X that area X is important enough to
merit work. And getting to the end of a project only to discover no one in the
business cares about what I did is the most frustrating thing.

~~~
RobRivera
Srrong echo, my 2019 was full of good work that wasn't valued, despite email
chains and postings. It's frustrating and detrimental to ones career to have a
bsd manager.

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dasil003
This feels a little dated as I suspect only the most clueless execs today
would not recognize the value of well-run IT (whether it be back-office or
product), but it serves as a pretty good explanation of the unspoken rules of
a culture which white collar management and leadership might not be inclined
to understand. Software engineers and IT folks are more akin to craftspeople
and blue collar professionals in the sense that their competence directly
translates to outcomes, and thus their reputation is based on more concrete
observations versus middle managers where it can be pretty hard to attribute
either success or failure directly to their actions.

------
dang
Discussed at the time:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=813368](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=813368)

------
eric234223
The relation b/w Respect and competence is correct. I had started on wrong
foot with competent people and when they tried to demonstrate their
competence, I show off my skills as a competition, but surprisingly it turns
out in to mutual self respect and we get along well. I have been on both sides
as showing the competence and being challenged and it always amazes me how it
always turns in to mutual respect.

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GoToRO
Not mentioned in the article: most of the time you have to change management,
no amount of management training will fix things.

------
loopz
Lots of hogwash words.

People who don't IT are unable to contribute, don't understand business is now
IT, and often sacrifice good for org for selfish gains.

People who do IT should contribute every day, need to learn the business
domain every day and stop playing victim to random authority of the week.

~~~
francoisdevlin
You just made the author's point about respect...

~~~
BigBubbleButt
I'd say OP swiftly took the air out of the author's argument, which is that
geeks are wonderful to work with once you know how. What OP did was
essentially say geeks are better than everyone else and management can fuck
off, not exactly making geeks seem like team players.

~~~
Rury
Not sure, they both seem to be saying the same thing to me.

I inferred OP essentially saying: business _is_ IT. They're synonymous - and
I'd largely agree with this.

All businesses deal with managing information, be it storing financial
records, IP info, or transmitting data amongst users or employees. The I in IT
is "Information", and all businesses deal with information/data.

Anyhow, the article starts out saying management often views geeks as being
business challenged, which such a viewpoint is questionable given what IT is.
Arguably, geeks are better at business (i.e. information handling and problem
solving) than non-geeks. Hence, the point about respect in the article. IT
Pro's won't simply respect someone because they're the boss. They respect
those who are competent at solving business (IT) problems, regardless of
demeanor or hierarchal rank.

As so, this bottom-up respect speaks volumes as to success of a team (as the
lack of it indicates the leaders are charlatans).

~~~
BigBubbleButt
I feel like this is a much more subtle way of reframing what OP said.

> Arguably, geeks are better at business (i.e. information handling and
> problem solving) than non-geeks.

Do you believe there's something that geeks aren't better at than non-geeks
(when it comes to being an employee)? Because OP's point, as I read it, was
that geeks are superior and should be running everything and was incredibly
dismissive of non-geeks being useful.

I agree that respect is earned, not given. But if you just immediately dismiss
what someone has to say because they aren't part of your geek tribe, you are
beginning the relationship from a hostile standpoint. Why would non-geeks look
at this as anything other than geeks being antagonistic?

> Anyhow, the article starts out saying management often views geeks as being
> business challenged, which such a viewpoint is questionable given what IT
> is.

I read the article differently. It was much less about geeks being business
challenged and much more about geeks being elitist, such as OP's bellicose
comment.

If neither side is willing to work with the other side, the fault almost
certainly lies with everyone.

~~~
Rury
>I read the article differently. It was much less about geeks being business
challenged and much more about geeks being elitist

I think the article could have been about anyone being elitist, it just so
happens to be about IT teams. Just remove geeks and non-geeks out for a
moment. Think the nature of hierarchy in general.

A stable hierarchy has the best people as its leaders, which is when society
benefits the most and teams work together best. If however, the leaders are
charlatans, then more competent underlings will stop respecting or listening
to the leaders, and/or may challenge the leaders. Typically life is worse off
(for society as a whole) under bad leaders than good leaders.

This is why bottom up respect speaks volume to the success of a team. The
article speaks a bit on this in the section about respect, and suggests
favoring competency as a solution.

Anyhow, I don't think OP's point necessarily is at odds with this as the 2nd
poster pointed out. OP argues that IT folk act elitist, because perhaps they
actually are but find themselves following “random authority figure of the
week”, (rather than the best authority).

Whether or not that’s true is subject to debate. I’m sure it is in some cases
and others not, but I largely agree with the part of his argument about
business being largely synonymous with IT.

>Do you believe there's something that geeks aren't better at than non-geeks

Sure, everyone is flawed. No one is fully aware of everything. As so, some may
need help with understanding the scope of things, other people’s viewpoints,
and problems. Some may have trouble communicating novel ideas, or solutions,
and need help in deploying them. Think people skills. I think this is why
technical people say it’s helpful to have a manager who acts as a sounding
board.

~~~
perl4ever
"I think this is why technical people say it’s helpful to have a manager who
acts as a sounding board."

You are saying the usefulness of a manager is the same as, say, a stuffed
octopus. I think this is illustrative of a cultural gap. Someone else might
claim that all of the interesting and challenging problems in business are
_management_ problems that technical people as such don't even acknowledge.

~~~
loopz
Instead of using straw-men, assumptions about where/who argument is from or
downmodding, other strategies would be more constructive.

~~~
perl4ever
What? I didn't say anything about any of the above. "Someone might claim" is a
euphemism for _me_ , not a straw man.

A stuffed octopus is indeed something people (techies) use as a sounding board
- and it works. You can explain your problems to anyone or anything and get
surprisingly good results. I _have_ used my manager this way. However, that's
not the limit of what a manager can do.

