
What are common mistakes that new or inexperienced managers make? - asianexpress
http://www.quora.com/Management/What-are-common-mistakes-that-new-or-inexperienced-managers-make?share=1
======
kabdib
Good managers realize they have to be _managers_ and can't do an effective job
of engineering (this is certainly true of a first-level manager with more than
a few reports).

The best managers I've had have sighed wistfully and wished out loud that they
could do engineering, but made a conscious decision not to. The really good
managers will be very interested in how you are getting along with your
career, and it will often not come as a surprise to them when it comes time
for you to leave ("time to go, grasshopper").

The bad managers were bad for numerous reasons, but many of the worst were
micro-managing, getting in the way, having technical _arguments_ , dishing out
unreasoned mandates to solve things one way or another, or generally trying to
be Boss Engineers without actually being part of the team. Sucked hard. The
times I've switched jobs underneath these bozos, I've called it "Firing my
boss."

~~~
scottm01
I'd go a step further and answer the question "What are some common mistakes
new managers make?" with "Accepting a promotion to management".

If you're coming from a technical role, understand that your new job is not to
be an engineer. If you're lucky and are good enough at your new job that you
have some spare cycles, you might get to guide some architectural discussions

It can be rewarding to help guide a team towards something you could never
accomplish alone, but you must resist the temptation to step and do "do
things".

Disclaimer -- I moved up to a director-level position and realized within a
year that to be good at it I would probably not be able to continue expanding
my technical skills, at least not on company time. I moved on to an
"individual contributor" role with a company that provides higher level career
opportunities that don't involve having direct reports. The minutia of actual
line management wasn't bad as long as there was a good team, but I definitely
underestimated the people skills, budgeting, planning, and politics that goes
along with being a good manager.

~~~
ulms
> _I moved on to an "individual contributor" role with a company that provides
> higher level career opportunities that don't involve having direct reports._

Well, that sounds pretty slick. How's it working out? As someone who was just
approached by management about a director position, and this being somewhat
familiar ground, I'm concerned about the lack of expansion and technical
progression as well. Haven't really seen many "no direct reports" situations
in my neck of the woods, unfortunately... but it seems like that could be
something to aspire for.

~~~
scottm01
I was probably a bit negative with that reply (though I do think "X is our
best engineer, let's have them manage others to make them more like X!" is far
too common).

I'm enjoying the new (now 2 year old) role but there are also negatives -- I
have less visibility into the direction of the group/company and "stuff
happens" that I would've known was coming at the old role. I'm definitely
getting to stay hands on, and satisfying the "big picture" itch with
involvement in architectural and project planning discussions.

I think if you're considering that sort of move just make sure you find the
management challenges interesting and be willing to invest as much time and
effort into getting good at the new job as you have at your "individual
contributor" role. Have a good relationship with some existing managers and
directors and talk honestly about the role with them if at all possible.

I don't regret the short move to management or the move back, and I'd consider
either in the future. It's important to understand that they are usually
almost completely different jobs though.

------
polemic
Those answers are great, but they're also very high level and general.

One of the best pieces of advice, badly paraphrased below, I've heard from a
military context.

    
    
       "Any time you instruct a subordinate, you must be 
        prepared to deliver the same instruction every single
        time they perform that action, and expect it to be 
        performed in that way until otherwise instructed."
    

This is a warning about micromanagement, flippant decisions and how to
delegate. For example, if you tell someone off-hand not to bother you with X,
be prepared to _never be bothered with X again_. If you tell someone how to
shine their shoes, be prepared to tell them how to shine their shoes _every
single day_.

Again, this is an a military context where orders flow downhill, but the same
applies in other areas of business. An experienced manager knows where they
need to set the boundaries within which their staff operate, with as much
autonomy and initiative as possible. An inexperienced manager doesn't
understand how to balance this equation.

PS if anyone has a better formulation of the above, please share =D

~~~
IgorPartola
I am reading Dune and this is very similar to the advice Leto gave to Paul.
Which came first, I wonder?

~~~
mantrax5
Can you please quote which part you refer to?

~~~
blrgeek
Comes up just before Paul does his sandworm trial.

~~~
deathanatos
Having not read Dune myself, I was rather hoping you would quote the relevant
passage, so that I and those like myself can compare it to the aforementioned
military quote, and perhaps derive some insight from it.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
It's worth reading.

~~~
IgorPartola
I am almost through it and I have to say I am not enjoying it as much as I
thought I would. I read books like this mostly because of their significance
to the SciFi genre and while I think this books has some really great
elements, the fact that Paul is basically infallible irks me. Nobody is that
perfect in my experience and I wish I wasn't sure that he'd be successful with
everything he starts.

I did read a critique of Dune recently that suggested that Herbert initially
wanted to show how dangerous superheros are. This explains a bit about why
Paul is a superhero: he has to be to make Herbert's thesis. However, then I'd
be rooting for him to fail and I don't like the stories where the protagonist
is evil in some subtle way and you are supposed to root for them to fail.

~~~
dragonwriter
> the fact that Paul is basically infallible irks me.

It's supposed to.

> I did read a critique of Dune recently that suggested that Herbert initially
> wanted to show how dangerous superheros are. This explains a bit about why
> Paul is a superhero: he has to be to make Herbert's thesis. However, then
> I'd be rooting for him to fail and I don't like the stories where the
> protagonist is evil in some subtle way and you are supposed to root for them
> to fail.

Paul _isn 't_ evil and you aren't supposed to root for Paul to fail; insofar
as the critique that Herbert is trying to illustrate that superheroes are
dangerous is correct, it is correct in the traditional sense of "superhero"
where "evil" is very much not part of the mix.

An evil "superhero" is a super _villain_ , and illustrating that supervillains
are dangerous wouldn't be particularly interesting. Supervillains are useful
dramatic tools because their danger is blatantly obvious.

------
IgorPartola
So at one point I took on a management job, stepping up from a (lead)
developer. I felt like the whole thing was kind of a train wreck and I am
still slowly analyzing the black box recordings from it. This was my first
time having direct reports that were not one or two interns and managing a
team of seven other highly intelligent people was quite a chore in itself.
What bugged me is that I could never tell if the problem was the environment
or something I was doing. I tried to be fair. I mentored people when I could
help. I tried to not be overbearing when I had nothing to add. I present
challenging problems to the people who I thought would find them interesting.
I advocated for my guys to the upper management, trying to improve working
conditions. I insisted on being flexible, discarding what was slowing us down,
and adopting what was good. None of that seemed to help: my dev team learned
to resent me for delivering the bad news (for example the dev team was the
fallback for doing data entry for weeks on end when nobody else could handle
it and we had no time to finish better data entry tools because of it), and my
boss(es) learned to resent me for not delivering what they expected.

I know that there were quite a few problems above me. Lack of leadership
carries far and wide and there was a disconnect between what the products did
and what the management thought it did. Lack of money (think lack of
compensation, lack of tools, lack of time for anything but immediate returns)
did not help either. I do keep questioning whether I was doing all the wrong
things or if I was put in a situation designed for me to fail, or perhaps
both.

After I left I understand the company hired three different people to replace
me: a manager, a dev lead, and a support engineer. I suppose that's some kind
of a sign that I was trying to do too many things at once. Most of the
engineering team also left after I did. The least I could do is give them the
great recommendations they all deserved so all of them moved onto exciting new
pastures. However, I cannot help but feel like I failed at this task that I
felt sure I could tackle and I don't understand why.

Please excuse the rant. These types of topics always trigger those same
feelings in me.

Edit: now I work as a developer on 2-3 person teams. I have no reports. I get
to be productive again! I can write code that doesn't have to suck to
compensate for poorly chosen deadlines. This is good for the soul. I do miss
leading a team though; not managing but really leading. One of my proudest
moments was when I was allowed to follow a system of estimates and sprints I
put together and for 8 weeks my team delivered on schedule and exactly what
was promised. That was one of my more joyful moments.

~~~
bane
welcome to low/mid-level management. You get squeezed from the top and bottom.
Everybody will hate you, so you just try and hit deadlines.

It also sounds like a typical story where the larger organization was trying
to keep management lean, without realizing that it really did take multiple
people to do the job.

One place I worked at ground through three managers in 6 months (with 120
people under them) before finally getting the clue and hiring a proper team of
7 to do the job.

It's not uncommon at all and it really is the upper management's
responsibility to properly staff their low/mid management teams.

~~~
rpwilcox
How common is 600% turnover in management?

I know turnover in engineering is usually high (if people are moving around
every 18 months to 2 years)... but 600%?

~~~
kevingadd
I've seen turnover that bad at past employers. In some cases it continued for
years after I left. I think it depends on the company, not necessarily
averages.

~~~
marrs
Ditto for a place where I used to work. Unfortunately for me and my
colleagues, the reason for the high turnover was that they kept hiring good
dev managers who all quickly identified the projects' major problems and set
about trying to solve them. This had the unfortunate side effect of revealing
the incompetence of the TD, so they had to go quickly.

~~~
Consultant32452
TD? Technical Director?

------
ryanburk
the top answer is really well done, but lacks the gem from the second answer:
"One of the major rookie mistakes I have made and see many others make is the
assumption that human motivation is tied to economic outcomes"

put another way - you might have a personal ambition to have a title like "VP
of Engineering" or make $500k a year, but most others don't. so if you project
your motivations / world view on those who work for you, you will have a bad
time building a great team with a great culture. knowing what your people
value is really important and will help you get the best work from your team.

~~~
jevanish
One of the amazing things I've learned as a manager is how much you can get
out of asking people what they want.

Many people haven't really thought about it and so you end up going on a fun
journey helping them figure it out. Usually, you discover over time that there
are _a lot_ of things more important than money. Being the manager that helped
them figure out what they really want (and hopefully get closer to it) builds
awesome loyalty and motivation on the job.

Once you have the minimum amount to live comfortably (which in places like SF
is actually a non-trivial amount), I've found raises and bonuses have only
very short-term happiness that wears off in a week or two. It's feeling
fulfillment in your job and making progress on your long term goals that
really brings career happiness.

~~~
ryanburk
this is really good advice.

I learned from a superb mentor Laurie Litwack who was a great program manager
at microsoft that you should learn about each of your reports "heart, tree,
star".

heart: what do you love? tree: what / where do you want to grow? star: how do
you feel rewarded?

especially in an environment where you can juggle awards, this can be really
helpful, if someone values a bonus and someone else values titles & public
recognition, you can balance them out and make everyone happy. and hit a
budget. ideally...

~~~
orware
Interesting...I just ran a Google Search on that one (Heart-Tree-Star) and it
came up with a SlideShare presentation from another Microsoft guy mentioning
"Meng Phua" as the originator for him...seems like it was taught to quite a
few of the folks there at Microsoft at one point perhaps?

[http://www.slideshare.net/kaykas/career-planning-
framework-h...](http://www.slideshare.net/kaykas/career-planning-framework-
heart-tree-star)

------
incision
I surely agree with most of what's posted there - a majority of it is
straightforward common sense that's barely even specific to management.

"Don't procrastinate, communicate clearly" are to management what "eat less,
exercise" is to losing weight or "only buy things you need, spend less than
you earn" is to saving money.

The problem isn't managers that they haven't read this compilation of
checklists or its equivalent in any of the thousands of management books out
there.

The problem is the brokenness of management as a role in general.

Too many organizations are stuck in an broken structure which makes management
the most direct if not only way to advance in terms of status, pay, autonomy
or all three.

The end result are incompetent managers who need to be taught common sense or
unhappy ones who are far better suited to other roles, but recognize them as
dead-ends.

If becoming a manager stops being desirable for all the wrong reasons you
won't have to remind your new, inexperienced managers not to be lazy or not to
manage by intimidation.

~~~
jevanish
It seems like a number of newer, growing startups are making sure there are
individual contributor paths for growth. What would you like to see as a
solution?

Also - do you think it's that their overwhelmed, under-trained for the new
demands of the role, or something else that causes so many managers to fail?

~~~
incision
_> 'It seems like a number of newer, growing startups are making sure there
are individual contributor paths for growth. What would you like to see as a
solution?'_

I think that making available a number of paths for growth is certainly a good
thing. I expect there are size limits on such a structure - either for the
company as a whole or the extent of the company that gets to experience that
track.

This is something I'm very curious about - small companies which have managed
to keep their employs happy, well-paid and continuously growing (as
individuals).

> _' Also - do you think it's that their overwhelmed, under-trained for the
> new demands of the role, or something else that causes so many managers to
> fail?'_

I doubt there's ever truly a single source for manager failure, but if I had
to bet on the most significant variables in failing in a typical situation I'd
say:

* Promotion Beyond Competence:

Happens for all sorts of reasons - nepotism, stereotyping, political
maneuvering (puppet appointments), adherence to tradition and many more.

However it happens, the person is not properly equipped for the role, in the
worst case it's to such a degree that they don't recognize how far they fall
short.

* Lack of Ambition / Urgency:

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If it is broke, don't fix it. There's too
much risk. No reason to rock the boat and jeopardize a steady, comfortable
paycheck.

* Unmanageable People:

I expect lots of people have never worked for a good manager of any measure.
That bad experience makes them utterly certain that anyone who isn't 'in the
trenches' 100% of the time useless - a drain on their productivity.

So, once the good one comes along - the one who will make him/herself an
impenetrable human bullshit shield for 98.6% of every day in exchange for a 5
minute status report - they refuse to offer up that barest minimum.

~~~
couchand
Your first bullet point is so well known it's called the "Peter Principle"
[0].

EDIT: There's also the corresponding "Dilbert Principle" [1] which states that
incompetent employees are promoted intentionally to remove them from the
productive flow.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle)
[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dilbert_Principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dilbert_Principle)

------
sambeau
The single most common mistake I see managers making is assuming that their
job is to manage the people rather than the project, closely followed by
trying to micro-manage the project itself. Trust and delegation are key to all
of this.

A good manager looks after a project not its people, concentrates on the big
picture while letting others deal with the small details. A good manager
achieves this by delegation.

Assuming you've hired the right people in the first place you should be able
to let people get on with their jobs — if you try to do their jobs for them
you will fail through lack of expertise or lack of time.

I would add that iteration is also key - a manager should check on a regular
basis that what has been planned is what is being done and that if not ensure
there is time to change what is being done as early as possible. Good staff
and good managers appreciate that some things will take a few iterations to
get right but it is better to iterate than to take the first version of
everything (and foolish to plan for this) - not iterating leads to over-design
and slow progress as everyone desperately tries to second-guess all the
situations their work might have to cover.

Iteration is also the best way to get a feel for individual workers' pace and
abilities.

------
mp3jeep01
When I first started work out of college I kept a notebook of "things I
like/don't like" about my managers, mostly as a training piece for myself. One
of the top qualities one of my managers had was his comfort level with
admitting to me "I don't know the answer to that, but I think I know where we
can find it".

Probably summed up as something like "check your ego at the door". This goes
for not only managers, but any member of an organization -- pretending to know
something when you really don't and being afraid to ask questions is a _huge_
red flag to me for both managers and employees alike.

And back to the list, IMO that's a pretty good list, especially coming from
one person's experiences.

~~~
lugg
Piecemeal advice, even if you know the answer to all job interview questions
answering a straight up "no haven't dealt with that before but I'd tackle it
by learning x y z." Will set you apart from pretty much everyone. Being able
to confidently tell someone you politely have no fucking clue is pretty rare
in my experience.

Example I interviewed for a job I know I was qualified for, they kept asking
questions about things I really had no idea about (all stuff I had never dealt
with before - only similar things) they were so refreshed by the honesty and
how I dealt with not knowing things they offered me the job despite pretty
much what I thought at the time was tanking the interview.

~~~
nostrademons
I used to interview people for Google, and "I don't know but here's how I
would go about finding out" almost never counted against candidates. What
_would_ count against a candidate is if they made a wrong assumption and then
blindly proceeded as if that assumption was correct.

~~~
mgkimsal
What if they said they'd bing for the answer? Would that count against them?

~~~
nostrademons
I think that's happened before, not for one of my interviews but for one a
friend gave. I don't think it counted against them, but they weren't good
enough to meet the bar anyway. (That happens a lot - I've never had a non-
intern candidate get through, and I've had friends go for 50 interviews
without a single candidate getting hired.) We had a good laugh afterwards.

------
sheepmullet
Problems I found with the top answer:

Performance management: It is highly unlikely as somebody new to the team, and
brand new to management, that you can work out who the high performers are and
who the under performers are within the first few weeks. If you get it wrong
then by making it official and documenting by email you will get the entire
teams backs up.

Not explicitly managing resources: Really bad advice. How do you know what is
important within the first few weeks? Often you will only have a high level
view of what the team does within the first few weeks. Try and do this too
quickly and again it can backfire.

~~~
ianmcall
When I wrote the answer (that is currently top answer) I was thinking about a
longer time window for the "new manager" period, perhaps a year instead of a
few weeks. You're right that someone new to the team and new to management
won't be able to accurately assess who the top and bottom performers are in
their first few weeks. Same for how to allocate resources.

If the "new manager" period is the first year of management then I stick by my
answer on those points.

~~~
sheepmullet
From a years (or even six months) perspective the points make a lot more
sense. The question asked about the first few weeks as a manager :). Thanks
for taking the time to clarify.

------
klodolph
In other news, Quora doesn't blur out the second answer and ask for you to log
in?

~~~
Fishkins
Because the submitter added ?share=1 to the link

edit: I personally use [https://github.com/sindresorhus/quora-
unblocker](https://github.com/sindresorhus/quora-unblocker) in Chrome to do
this for me so I don't have to think about it. I also made
[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/quora-
share/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/quora-share/) to do the
same thing in FF.

~~~
dang
> Because the submitter added ?share=1 to the link

That was us. Maybe we should make the software do it?

~~~
yuhong
I wonder if sama has seen this:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4503910](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4503910)

------
hessenwolf
There are some old IEEE articles on management for techies that, in my humble
opinion, are simply brilliant.

Delegation: (usually the first failure I see)
[http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~gerard/Management/art5.html](http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~gerard/Management/art5.html)

And the rest:
[http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~gerard/Management/index.html](http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~gerard/Management/index.html)

------
TwistedWeasel
The hard part for me was that managing engineers takes a lot of time and
energy, it's not possible to be a full time engineer and a full time manager.

Over time your understanding of the technical details of the work your team is
doing will atrophy and where once you may have been an expert on all aspects
of the system you must now rely on the judgement of the senior members of your
team when making decisions. This is hard for a lot of people, to know that you
don't know enough to make a decision and then to trust your team enough to
help you make the right one.

Building that trust is important, because without it you'll make bad (or at
least uninformed) technical decisions. it's easier if you moved up into a
managerial role from a team you worked on instead of being hired to manage a
team you just met.

------
pascalo
What really always rubbed me up the wrong way was approaching me to come up
with the question "OK, how long then?". Because "managers" tend to ask this
when neither scope nor current state of the project are visible, and are then
getting offended when one points out to them that it's an impossible question.
They then usually proceed to ask you to just make something, clearly
demonstrating that they don't want to improve the disaster state of the
project or care for your opinion in any shape or form, but instead prefer some
randomly made up number.

So whenever I hear this question in that very particular tone, I already plan
my exit strategy because I know it's going to be a train wreck.

------
abdinoor
A number of the points in the top answer are really symptoms of not being
aware of what is going on with your people. One of the fatal flaws (for the
manager if not the company) I have observed in poor managers is a lack of
spending time with the team members.

At least in tech, many managers are promoted from individual contributor roles
and they only carve out a little time to be a manager. Usually that means they
don't know what is going on, and when issues do come to their attention those
issues have been festering for quite a while.

~~~
jevanish
I've always been stunned how few tech companies and startups do 1 on 1s. It's
the single, easiest way to surface a lot of this. As long as you don't
completely ignore what's brought up in them, you'll get in front of a lot of
trouble.

@abdinoor - what tactics do you use to get in front of these issues?

~~~
abdinoor
@jevanish you're right about the one-on-ones being the easiest way. But just
doing the meeting is not enough. You would be surprised how many managers walk
into a 1:1 with no agenda and are just asking "What's up?"

It is also not enough to just talk about the day-to-day. The 1:1 is not a
smaller standup meeting. Just because there is "nothing on your plate" does
not mean you skip the 1:1.

I generally prepare by reviewing notes from previous meetings and any goals
that we have set together. Also bring a number of questions about company
direction, transparency, colleagues, etc. Over the course of many 1:1s I can
build a pretty comprehensive understanding of what makes this person tick and
how they feel about their work and colleagues.

------
peterwwillis
I wish there was a way to share this list with a manager without seeming like
a dick.

~~~
abtinf
I've felt this way several times in the past.

What I've found is that its a good indicator of when I need to launch a new
job search.

Under good management, I usually don't feel the need to share a list like
this. If I do, then I can usually have a 5 minute chat with the manager to get
things worked out. If that doesn't work, a longer discussion can be in order.

Under bad management, I usually feel like any attempt at change is more likely
to hurt me than help me. I once took the risk of sharing the netflix culture
slide deck [0] (a quick and insightful must read) with a manager. His response
was that, if I was attracted to that sort of culture, then maybe I should get
a job at netflix. Fail. You can probably guess at the number of management
discussions we had after that.

[0]
[http://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664](http://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664)

~~~
emddudley
That Netflix culture slide deck sounds pretty idyllic, but it's also 5 years
old. Netflix has faced a number of challenges since then, and I wonder if
they've changed their approach at all.

------
vidar
My experience is that the more experienced the manager, the more he will
remove himself from all conversations, the rookies always talk about
themselves.

~~~
ryanburk
talking about themselves and taking credit are two of the big traps rookies
fall into.

------
Tactic
The biggest mistake I see managers make is that they think they are there to
deliver completed projects to upper management. They are playing project
manager when they should be playing people manager.

A good manager's job is to make sure their direct reports have everything they
need to get their job done. The proper information, tools, training, time,
motivation, etc. If they have the proper staff the rest of the success will
stem from that.

I have employed that as a manager and expect it as a direct report and have
only ever seen success when it is employeed both in the military and the
private sector.

------
emilioolivares
Mistake #1: It's not about you, it's about them. Mistake #2: Not having
frequent one-on-one meetings with your direct reports. For this I recommend
you listen to: [http://www.manager-tools.com/manager-tools-
basics](http://www.manager-tools.com/manager-tools-basics). One-on-ones are
considered the core of the management trinity. Mistake #3: Not giving timely,
frequent feedback. Mistake #4: Not coaching your team to help them grow.
Mistake #5: Not wanting to let go of your individual contributor
responsibilities.

Cheers!

------
Dolimiter
Can't we ban links to the Quora website? It doesn't let people read the page
without logging in.

~~~
RivieraKid
Who's we? And no, you don't have to log in, try it.

------
JoeAltmaier
OP lists all the issues from the point of view of management.

From the employee point of view, here are some common manager problems:

Employee comes in earlier, leaves earlier than manager: manager assumes
employee is only working the hours they see; they act on this and insult/piss
off the employee with their assumption of slacking.

Manager optimizes group for his own metrics e.g. maximize resources/minimize
commitments to increase likelihood of meeting all objectives. Company loses
(spending way too much for the minimal accomplishments); employee loses when
manager won't permit taking on anything but the most mundane projects.

Manager cherry-picks opinions in group to justify the approach manager Wants
to take, instead of letting the experienced employees make their own plan.
Managers don't 'get to' make decisions; they are supposed to gather
information to make the Right decision.

------
edderly
I think the biggest mistake new managers make is to forget that you are
principally managing people. Even though day to day there's a lot of email,
meetings, project management and office politics it pays to remember that you
succeed through your staff as much if not more than through your personal
efforts.

~~~
jevanish
Do you manage anyone? How do you remember that?

------
deathanatos
> _Lowering the bar - Inexperienced managers have low standards, or lower
> their standards, in an effort to make a hire. Good managers know that they
> 're much better off keeping a high bar and waiting for the right candidate._

I'm facing this argument right now, and it's unclear to me on what my
manager's opinion on this is. I'd rather not trade quality. While I agree with
the quoted answer, I can't think of a good argument to back it up, and the
answer doesn't provide one. Can someone give something more concrete here,
especially something more concrete than, "well, a weak hire will cost you more
in training / patience / bringing them up to speed / constant mentoring"? (or
is that really the argument?)

------
alien3d
Software development. 1\. Don't have experience programming(medium is okay for
fast debug). 2\. Don't have experince in meeting room.Altitude E.g don't play
with your phone in meeting room don't voice opinion.. It you don't talk how
people would knew it ? 3\. Follow Up Client And Vendor .Some new born or over
experience take think as simple.(Serious Issue). 4\. No Money Manager.Just
wanted to request people work for them without money(Serious issue).

 __There 's a lot to write here.. but above seem important to me dealing with
problematic manager.

------
iQuercus
"Thinking too small - A successful leader is going to create growth and
opportunity for their team. A leader who thinks small is unlikely to do
either. Instead of planning how to grow your business 100%, plan how to grow
it 10x or 100x."

This attitude could potentially backfire. It can lead to a closed-loop that
eventually results in dishonesty to meet unattainable numbers. Better to plan
growth empirically and adjusting for things like regression to the mean at the
team and company level.

------
bjelkeman-again
I probably have made all of those mistakes at one time or another. Some of the
mistakes where bad enough to nearly sink a company. Hopefully I make fewer of
them now.

It is humbling to have a great team actually letting you manage them,
especially when you mess up and the tell you and they let you learn from your
mistakes.

When you have teams like that it is easy to manage. If you do, take really
good care of your team. They are worth it.

~~~
jevanish
What kinds of things do you like to do to take really good care of them?

~~~
bjelkeman-again
It probably varies a bit from what type of organisation you are running.

Then, listen to people, understand where they are at, offer something which
means that they develop personally. Make sure everyone is really clear on what
you are trying to achieve and then give them the rains to lead and achieve
that together. My product development teams have a very strong idea of where
we are going with the products and they do 95% of their work without any input
from me.

Again, listen to people. Attend meetings, not to control things but
essentially keep your ear on the ground for issues or friction then resolve it
quickly with the person in focus. Also I attend meetings to inform people on
what is going on in the rest of the organisation.

We run a very open organisation, so we discuss budgets and how we approach
things very openly. Open discussions about how we are expanding are important.
One effect of this is that we have very little in the form of politics in the
organisation.

A lot of this can sound like clichés, and it is, if you don't do it well and
with people in your focus. The organisation we run is there to support a great
group of people doing great things. Not the other way around.

------
blisterpeanuts
Micromanagement is the #1 problem I've seen with inexperienced managers (and
some experienced ones, too). I'm surprised the article didn't mention that,
although a couple of the commenters did, at least.

You have to hire good people that you can trust to do the job, up front. Then
you have to trust them to do the job. It's as simple as that.

------
zhte415
A handful:

Not delegating.

Not working through others.

Not managing a group's resources.

Promoting one's self while failing to support one's boss.

Appropriating others' work as one's own.

Not growing relationships with other groups in a non-protective, non-clique,
non-silo'd way.

Following, rather than questioning, organisational policies (i.e. not managing
upwards).

------
doxcf434
One thing I didn't see on any of the lists is ethics. Truly world class
managers and team builders are also very careful about ethics, and see it as
more important than their project, job and career.

------
novaleaf
off topic, but wow, quora is actually letting me read past the first answer
without logging in. they are finally wising up after I ignore the call-to-
signup for the umpteenth time?

~~~
tomp
Adding ?share=1 to the link helps.

------
Shivetya
Not knowing when someone has to go or worse, having the confidence to make
them go. Far too many cannot organize their thoughts properly to justify it to
themselves or even HR.

------
jaunkst
Listen. Don't think. Keep it simple stupid. Let the leads lead, and we'll just
listen.

------
snarfy
Praise publicly, criticize privately (with the person you are criticizing, not
behind their back).

------
himanshuy
Wish, I could post it on my company's intranet.

