

Non-Hierarchical Management - andreyf
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/management?

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andreyf
There is a lot of advice here, but the part about hiring seems to me by far
the most important. Firstly, it's actionable - it sets a very specific
guideline to follow. Secondly, it's crucial for the other things to work. If
you don't hire the right people - those that are interested in building
whatever you're building, no management voodoo will save you.

 _I have never found the traditional methods of hiring — resumés, interviews,
quizzes — to be helpful at all. Instead, I look at two things: what someone
has done and whether I enjoy spending time with them. The first shows not just
their talent but also their ability to execute. If they haven't made something
interesting, whether as a side project or at a previous job, then they’re
probably not worth hiring. It's not that hard to sit down and accomplish
something; be wary of people who haven't._

 _Similarly, you need to keep in mind that you're not just hiring a robot —
you're hiring a flesh-and-blood human who you're going to need to spend a lot
of time with during the day. That means they need to be someone you not just
get along with, but enjoy being around. A formal interview, with all its
stress and structure and contrivance, is a pretty bad environment for seeing
if you like someone. Instead, just go get coffee and chat._

And also:

 _there are few things more fun than working hard with a really nice, talented
group of people._

~~~
antipax
I couldn't agree more. If you don't have people that are interested in what
they're doing and happy working with the other people that are also doing what
they're doing, then you're going to have a weakest link scenario on your
hands. The dead weight will be unhappy because they don't like what they're
doing, and everyone else will be unhappy because they have to pull the dead
weight (and the dead weight is complaining about being pulled!).

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arebop
I was nodding in agreement at most every point, and then I wondered why there
are no citations and whether Aaron has experience successfully using this
strategy.

~~~
andreyf
I thought the same thing - via chat, Aaron said he's coming from his
experiences in working on open library, watchdog, and infogami.

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ojbyrne
I fundamentally believe in this idea of "manager as servant." The problem is,
that the people who get promoted, don't.

~~~
jgrahamc
I'm the CTO of a startup and have been VP of Engineering or CTO of others
before that. I like the idea of being a servant and working with people
smarter than me. Right now I've got a team of 9 people working for me and most
of my day is spent dealing with stuff so that they don't have to deal with
those things.

Yesterday I did IT rubbish all day, and right now I'm fighting HP over what
looks like poor support of multicast IP in one of their access points. These
are things that need to get done and it's more effective if I deal with them,
than involving the team. They need to get on with the coding.

I'm very happy to be in this position. But perhaps I'm an odd ball.

~~~
ojbyrne
Perhaps I'm overly cynical.

~~~
jgrahamc
Reading your posts here it seems that you've been exposed to some really poor
managers. Me too!

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staunch
Nice article. I would have liked to see more discussion of motivation. Nothing
is more important as far as I'm concerned.

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known
Leading, Managing, Administering, Manipulating and Using people require
different skills altogether.

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known
It depends on the type of culture. In Japan, if you wanted to address a person
you should append "SAN" to their name, irrespective of his position in the
hierarchy . SAN is equivalent of SIR in British.

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c00p3r
By the way. Did you hear about Orhan Pamuk? He got the Nobel prize in
literature 2006? The book called "My Name Is Red". There are much more about
project management in his book that in this page. =)

Of course you must be a servant for those, who doing things that you unable to
do. Of course, you must forget yourself when you're doing your job. Of course,
you must pay respect and attention to the people around you sincerily.

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hank777
I see. I wonder if this philosophy works at Apple. Do you really think apple
products would be better if Steve Jobs always deferred to his staff by saying
"you're the expert." Ridiculous. All of this stuff is very situation specific.
I am sure that is what he does at Pixar (probably less) and not at all what he
does at Apple, and rightly so.

