
Employees Who Say vs. Employees Who Show - 0x54MUR41
https://www.karllhughes.com/posts/sayers-vs-showers
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boblebricoleur
I'm sure there are people out there that are impervious to feedback and
believe they have all the answser.

I've also seen countless of young engineers starting to welcome managers'
feedback and "showing" their will to improve. Then, gradually,noticing their
management incompetence (technical and/or managerial) and start "saying" stuff
to avoid confrontation.

Self reexamination and accepting feeback is great to improve but what if the
feedback is just plain wrong or contradictory ?

A lot a "sayers" in your team can be a red flag for your management skills.

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maxheadroom
> _I take notes every week on every employee I manage to track specific
> instances of positive and negative things they’re doing. This is really
> helpful for tracking behaviors in one-on-one reviews._

This seems to be on the micromanaging level of things. If you have to operate
at this level, you're trying to "control" the all of the elements of the team
dynamics, instead of letting the dynamics work for you.

A team is a team because it operates together. It isn't just about the
manager-employee relationship.

> _Give specific expectations and behaviors that you want the employee to
> execute. Don’t be vague or use words like, “better” or “more”. Be specific
> by saying, “You need to complete all stories within 25% of your estimates
> this month.”_

This seems a bit metric-driven and metrics with a distribution of
disproportionate work is going to drive bad culture and bad habits. The low-
hanging fruit will drive metrics high for one individual and, if they're
gaming the system, it will be obvious; but if it's all down to metrics,
they're getting the job done, right?

~~~
karlhughes
I don't look at taking detailed feedback notes as micro-managing, but rather
as a way to make sure employees get valuable, specific feedback.

As an example, if my boss said, "hey, you're not really doing that great," but
didn't offer specific examples of how I underperformed, I'd be frustrated and
not likely to improve. If she said, "Last week at the product meeting, I
noticed you were staring off into space and then had to have a question
repeated. Are you okay?" I'd be a lot more apt to open up a conversation about
things that are bugging me.

I guess I take notes so that my feedback can be specific and not general, not
so I can tell employees exactly how to do their jobs.

