
What to do when your non-technical boss is just plain wrong - arrogantrobot
http://www.articulateventures.com/cultural-communications-2/what-to-do-when-your-non-technical-boss-is-just-plain-wrong/
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jrs235
A comment on the first comment of the article: "This last part reminds me of
something recently. Because management needs to feel like they have control
over what's going on, as a technical person, you should do the right thing,
but only 90% when you show it to them and make the 10% that is miss quite
obvious. The reason is so that when you present it to them, they can point out
the missing piece of the project and feel like they have contributed."

I hate this. I hate having to play these games and tricks. I want to work with
people that are aware of [psychology and] how much time is wasted having to do
such things. However, I realize most people don't know nor care about
psychology and so I am the one that should adjust knowing the things I do. It
just sucks because I still struggle with it.

~~~
tgrass
These are no more 'games and tricks' than having to expend more energy walking
uphill than downhill is a game or trick.

I am horrible at inter-office politics. I want so badly for things to be
"efficient" - but it is always efficient for me. My boss has me print hard
copies of email and put them in a physical folder AND has me copy the email as
a PDF and sstore it in a sub folder of the project folder. Mind-blowingly
inefficient on so many levels. But it's his way, and it's his firm. And I
fought him on it, and so many other things, for so long, really fought with
both of us screaming, I have poisoned the well. He won't ever trust me because
I handled our conflicts so poorly in the past. He's allowed to handle them
poorly - he pays my salary.

~~~
mcherm
Putting in intentional errors so someone else can catch them and think they
contributed... that IS 'games and tricks'. Whereas your example (sending
things in an inefficient way) is just a matter of accommodating someone else's
way of working.

Accommodation is a good idea, game-playing may work in the short run, but it
does not build long-term trust.

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CodeMage
There's some good advice in there, given with a horribly wrong intention.

The good advice is to repeat the manager's argument, the way you understood
it. However, if you do it to "loosen them up" and make them "more willing to
work with you", then you're doing it for the wrong reason.

The right reason is to verify whether you understood them correctly. Maybe
they meant to say something else. Maybe the did something else and you
misunderstood. Maybe they said exactly what they meant and you understood it
perfectly, but there's more to it. For example, they might have a perfectly
practical non-technical reason for their argument.

Here's an example from my own experience: at one point, a manager argued that
we should do something that would risk defeating the very purpose of a rather
big and complex software we've developed, by allowing a group of future users
to circumvent certain of its restrictions that are meant to make sure their
stuff can be used on more than one target platform. I pointed out this risk
and argued vehemently against it. The manager explained that the cost of
migrating their existing work to our software, while maintaining those
restrictions, would drive the cost of the whole project to 150% (or higher) of
what the project would cost if we allowed users to do what he proposed. That
certainly complicated the whole equation, even though his argument was still
"technologically horrible".

TL;DR: When non-technical managers disagree with you, it might be because they
have a need to assert their power and be respected by their subordinates, but
that's a conclusion you should draw only if you've made a reasonable attempt
to discard the alternatives. If you do happen to have a manager that behaves
that way consistently, then maybe you should consider changing the manager
and/or the company, instead of wasting your time and energy by trying to
manipulate them.

~~~
cleaver
Agreed. If you're using a tactic to get your way and with the assumption that
you are the expert (and the other person is wrong) then you are missing out.
In my experience, the best solutions came _after_ those discussions where you
get the other party to explain their motivations. The result was always better
than I could have come up with myself.

When in a position of authority, I had the opposite problem: I often couldn't
get people to disagree with me. This made it impossible to get to that
discussion. (Maybe my ideas really were perfect, but I doubt it.)

------
JohnBooty
Good article. The part about figuring out your boss' motivations is the best
part.

This is really the key to any interaction with another human being whether
we're talking about speaking to an overseas technical support person, your
boss, your mom, or your partner.

0\. Realize your non-technical boss isn't some cartoonish, mustache-twirling
villian with a fetish for poor technical solutions. He or she is picking them
for a reason, possibly a misguided reason.

1\. Figure out their motivations. Tricky, because most people are unwilling or
unable to articulate what they want, even to themselves. Generally, your boss
probably just wants things to run smoothly, make money, and look good to
_their_ boss. If they're choosing poor technical solutions, it's because they
(correctly or mistakenly) believe those poor technical solutions are the best
way to get to #2.

2\. Figure out how both your goals and theirs can be met.

3\. Communicate #2 to them.

None of those steps are easy, even though there are any a few of them. But it
can be done. I'm not always successful at it, but here's an example of a time
I did it right.

My boss employed ahem, "affordable" contractors who were basically
"Dreamweaver jockeys" - they constantly sent us tangled 1990s-style HTML that
I essentially had to re-write from scratch, taking me longer than it would
than if I'd simply done it from scratch.

Instead of just telling him how that was a poor technical idea, I took the
time to sit with him and show him (in a text editor) the difference between
modern HTML5 and the horrible Dreamweaver spew, and how much more quickly I
could change the modern code in order to respond to client requests. His eyes
lit up at that point, because I was solving a real challenge he had - being
responsive to change requests.

The icing on the cake was when I showed him some of the online galleries where
we could purchase pre-made, high-quality HTML templates. Not only were they
better-designed than the crap our contractors were sending us, they were easy
to work with and were a fraction of the cost.

So I didn't just say, "Dreamweaver sucks! Everybody knows that!"[1] I
demonstrated the wins a technically cleaner solution would give him.

______

[1] I realize it's probably possible to just use Dreamweaver in a disciplined
way, and create very clean markup with it if you wish. No offense to anybody
making good stuff with it.

~~~
dpiers
| Realize your non-technical boss isn't some cartoonish, mustache-twirling
villian with a fetish for poor technical solutions. He or she is picking them
for a reason, possibly a misguided reason.

I believe Hanlon's Razor applies here:

| Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

~~~
gknoy
Also, it's probably better to think of one's boss's choices as due to
ignorance rather than stupidity. The former is something you can help correct,
and the latter is a poisonous (and usually incorrect) opinion which will often
taint your feelings (and actions) towards them.

edit: How do I do italicized/blockquoted text? I've seen it done, but haven't
found docs on how.

~~~
joshuacc
You can add italics by putting asterisks around your words.

------
webreac
Just change your mindset. If you are an expert in your technical domain, what
is obviously wrong for you may be difficult to grasp to a non technical.
Imagine that your boss is very smart but that all you says looks like a
foreign language to him. Maybe, the boss is smart enough to learn your domain
in order to communicate with you, but the more obvious solution is to find an
interpret.

Find someone who will translate your technical point into something that your
boss will understand. Or improve your capacity to convince non-technical
people.

In my first job, I had to convince a boss of how to fix some performances
issues in database. He did not understood anything and organized a small
meeting with someone he trusted a lot and who was more technical. This third
person was really helpful to answer all the questions of the boss because I
had difficulties to explain what was obvious for me.

~~~
nirvana
This works with good bosses and after awhile you become the technical person
that they trust.

Unfortunately, a lot of bosses are mediocre and no amount of explaining, even
if you're really good at it, will reach them because it's all about ego for
them.

Or they believe some nonsense falsehood they heard on the internet. And the
internet is always right.

------
Tyrannosaurs
"Everyone has interests- why do they want to believe what they believe?"

One of the most common mistakes most people make when they're evaluating
someone else's actions is to refuse to give them the benefit of the doubt and
to overly assign negative drivers.

Assuming that managers are power hungry and desperate to be in control is the
equivalent of assuming that the only reason a programmer would select a
particular technology is that it would look good on their resume. Both of
those _can_ be true, but far more commonly they're not.

Neither managers nor programmers are generally stupid and they're not
generally malicious. Most managers aren't even power hungry. Like most people
they want to do a decent job they can be proud of, be surrounded by decent,
contented people and customers, and be reasonably rewarded for what they do.
If you assume any of these things to be false you're going to be wrong
considerably more often that you're right.

What is also common between programmers and managers is that they are
constrained by a range of factors and often have very limited control over the
constraints placed upon them. Managers have managers. They're answerable to
directors, to customers, to shareholders and to suppliers. As a rule the
larger the organisation the more complex the web of constraints and
constrainers becomes (hence why large organisations tend to react so slowly).

The thing to understand is what these constraints are. They're rarely
technical, they're far more commonly budgetary or time based. When your boss
says no he almost certainly isn't saying "no, it's a bad idea, I know better",
he's saying "no, I can't do this without damaging / risking something else".

So work out what the limiting factors are and try and work with him within
those. Often that will mean taking a longer term view - getting something
changed within a period of weeks or months is often massively more difficult
than if you set yourself a longer time frame. Short term commitments
(deliveries, revenue over the next couple of months) are often close to
immovable, things over a longer time scale are often more flexible.

One of the things bosses are often bad at is talking about the business to
programmers. Partly this is because programmers aren't always interested, but
a lot of it is habit. If everyone knows what the targets, deadlines and
schedules are, then they're in a better position to work within them.

------
lhnz
I don't really fancy negotiating with somebody that is objectively wrong and
in a higher position than me. Instead I will move the ground that they stand
on.

The best game to play in this instance is to gain favour with their boss and
anybody actively competing with them while passively disagreeing with them.
You must passively disagree with them because the aim is to form a situation
where you re-inforce their political opponents while appearing to be neutral -
eventually they will come to you for support, and at this point they will be
pliable. Something which will also help you gain authority is giving certain
good ideas to other people whose interests will be in fighting your battles,
however this is dangerous and you must make sure that they feel indebted to
you.

If you don't want to kowtow to an idiot or beat them at their own game then
simply quit and leave them to their mediocrity. There are likely to be a few
places around where people will listen and use advice.

Edit: I obviously prefer just joining somewhere else without these kinds of
insecure personalities, but my point was that political battles shouldn't be
played in the light. You need to wear a cloak, you need to gather forces, and
you need to resist the urge to slide the dagger in _until others ask you to._

~~~
jfischer
This leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I've seen quite a few people use this
approach in an attempt to get their boss's job, irrespective of the boss's
performance in their position. In general, I think that fighting your boss
only leads to a draw, almost never to a win.

~~~
lhnz
It can work though.

It's a long-shot to try and get your bosses job though. Aim higher or
sideways.

This is a better method than others in the thread.

------
thomseddon
The practical bit:

"Instead, a technical expert could offer chances for the boss to save face
when they are caught suggesting something that is a bad idea."

Which I think is a very smart technique with respect to all negotiations!

------
TheCapn
Regardless of the technological background of your manager this type of
conflict arises when there is power struggle. Good managers will take advice
and evaluate it giving their opinions/knowledge to arrive at the best decision
available. Bad managers will seek opportunity to step over you to either
appear bigger/better or to push you down.

I've seen cases of both and am glad I'm now working under the former but as
for the bad managers, at times they just simply don't know any better. Its
part of their personality to be commanding and feel that taking advice from
others is weakness. Its extremely difficult to work with them because in order
to have your thoughts considered you need to wrap them in a way that allows
the strong-headed individual believe it was their idea in the first place;
robbing you of any credit you may deserve.

~~~
nirvana
Good managers will not have a fetish for making decisions, but will, instead,
ask you questions that reveal the motivation for their concern about a given
technical solution, such as, "I've been told that we need to do X, and that Y
solution does X, how does your solution handle the X requirement?" Where X
could be a business requirement or a need that some other team in the company
has.

A good boss will bring his concerns forward and give you the opportunity to
address them, and if you tell him this is a better solution for the X issue,
then he'll trust you to do it and give you approval.

If it turns out that your solution was worse for X, then when he has to be
more careful in the future, he can remind you that X didn't get met last time
and that is why he's not sure about this time. You then have to prove it or
shape up.

It's all about building trust-- with GOOD bosses.

The problem is, good bosses are maybe %30. To many of them are simply people
who were promoted to management because they are ambitious and good at playing
politics and in a lot of companies their incompetence (eg: knowing nothing
about software despite managing programmers) is seen as an advantage (that was
the case at Amazon where my boss had trouble operating excel and his
background was in criminal justice.)

Hell, I once worked for an educational software company that higher ex-
kindergarten teachers to manage programmers. They knew nothing, but they had
been trained that "young ones" (eg us 20-30 year old artists and programmers)
were not to be trusted.... we even got scolded once for stepping out of the
office to have a conversation! It was a company run like a kindergarten class!

Trying to explain technology in both of these examples to profoundly
technology illiterate people was taken as "back talking". What they heard from
some cousin (or once, I kid you not "bill gate's investment group might make
an investment, so we need to get rid of our linux mail and file server and
replace it with windows") .... was always more compelling than what their
employees, who actually knew the situation, would tell them.

I think their incompetence fed a need to put their foot down.

In both cases the team collapsed as all the talent walked out the door.

------
tks2103
I couldn't shake my knee-jerk response to this title: "Get a technical boss"

~~~
arethuza
Well, one problem is that if you promote someone who is good technically to be
a manager they can quickly lose track of what is sensible from a current
technical perspective - knowledge of specifics of technologies can have a very
short half life (say a year or so).

~~~
phowat
As a programmer doing more and more managerial work (but thankfully not 100%
of the time yet), I try to keep my knowledge up-to-date by working on side
projects. May not be the perfect solution but it sure helps.

------
nraynaud
You know the downside of all that? You can only put so much in your brain and
learn so much things at once. So while you are in creasing your skills in
inter-personal communication, bargaining and psychology, you are just losing
your edge on the technical side. The more you're becoming able to convince
people, the less your idea has a probability to be enlightened.

When you've crossed the whole spectrum and all your brain is focused on
bargaining, congratulation, you're the clueless non-technical boss.

------
lubujackson
I'm always surprised that communication skills never seem to get any focus at
companies like Google, Twitter, etc. where constant learning is promoted.
Outside of managers, no one seems to be taught any of these skills that make
entire companies operate smoother.

There definitely is some stigma about these sorts of tactics being
manipulative or political, but I would compare it to learning how to write
effectively - it's an optimization that improves clarity and is really a
lifelong skill.

------
lifeisstillgood
get rid of managers - see Fred George and Programmer Anarchy

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk-CF7klLdA>

~~~
dak1
More people really need to watch this. Thanks for the link.

------
DenisM
It's good advice, but it's focusing on the wrong problem. Rather than knowing
how to solve difficult conflict it's far better to create a type of
relationship between boss and subordinates where difficult conflicts are
solved routinely and without drama. Resolving conflicts is a part of it, but a
more important part is making sure you and your party have shared context all
along.

------
zaidrahman
Explain him with a language that he will understand.

------
Nursie
As a contractor/freelancer/consultant, when my technical or non-technical
client is wrong, I explain this to them and do my best to persuade them to do
it my way. If they insist on doing it anyway then that's what I do.

They're going to pay me anyway. If it turns out later that their solution is
unworkable, they'll probably pay me again.

------
jfischer
Another approach that can work in big organizations: make sure that your boss
knows that, if they ignore your advice, the responsibility for the decision is
theirs, not yours. In a C.Y.A. organization this is often enough. Be sure to
have written proof -- when it hits the fan, people tend to have selective
memory.

------
meaty
We usually refer ours to a Dilbert strip that defines the exact problem.
Fortunately he has a sense of humor :)

~~~
qxf2
Lucky you! Your boss is self-aware, confident in his role and trusts you - all
key cornerstones to respectful negotiation. Make sure you reciprocate.

~~~
meaty
He's none of Been - he just knows when he's beaten :)

------
cpzobvs
"What to do when your non-technical boss is just plain wrong?"

Call it another typical day at the office. :)

------
soemarko
just like with children, you need to let them know that they're wrong. more
importantly, exactly like with children, you need to let them make their own
mistake.

------
Tyrant505
Fire him.

------
nirvana
I think the fundamental problem is that non-technical people end up in
positions of power and then feel they need to assert their decision making
power or they will lose it. In fact, in my experience, it becomes an article
of faith with some of them that the technical people are being short sighted
in some way, and thus going with "industry standard practices" (eg: currently
popular buzzwords) is superior to the "indulgent" suggestions of the technical
person.

I worry that today's generation of hackers have cottoned to the need to start
companies so that they can do great work, rather than being forced into
mediocrity by non-technical middle "managers"... only to turn around and be
hampered by non-technical investors making absurd demands. (Maybe VC meddling
has declined precipitously in the last 5 years or so, I hope so.)

In my experience at many startups a few VCs mostly left us alone, but most VCs
forced decisions on us that were bad decisions, often bad market decisions,
but many of them bad technology decisions Just one example: "You're getting
$4M in funding but you have to spend $2M of it on this other portfolio
companies product that claims to do what you need." Even though that other
product didn't actually do what we needed, targeted something else entirely,
but the VC was not technical so he didn't understand this. It was akin to
"javascript, java, whatever". This decision set us back 2 years and ultimately
cut the exit return by about %90 of what it would have been (given the value
of similar companies at the stage we were when we sold, even one year
earlier.) Did the VC learn his lesson? Of course not, he never heard (or was
willing to hear) that it was a mistake and due to liquidation preferences and
other double dipping, they made out great. The employees, however, lost out.

