
Design Patterns for Managing Up - tchalla
https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3308563
======
motohagiography
Concise articulation, and valuable. My comment is that this is happy-path
advice.

Corporate culture has changed to where instead of handling conflict according
to principle (e.g. Harvard negotiation project, getting to yes, principled
negotiations etc), today people are trained to out-passive each other, and
marshal political campaigns to isolate opposition. (salience, political
survival, working the ref, etc.)

The moment you acknowledge that the person you are dealing with is being
disingenuous and manipulative is the moment you have lost. That you can see
the mechanism critically signals you do not have power, and that you cannot be
trusted to "keep the ball in the air."

The typical response to this is, "that's black and white thinking, people have
different perspectives and views, which are valuable and legitimate." While
that is generally true, different perspectives aren't the problem, nor are
they new. It's a minority of people who exploit the agreeableness and civility
of others with a small toolkit of negative plays, and who cluster in high-
status organizations because they are motivated by proximity to power, but
without responsibility itself.

The OP articulates valuable patterns for navigating flat organizations in calm
seas. A set of patterns that describe when the knives are out would be a
helpful follow up.

~~~
PaulHoule
Sometimes when the "knives are out" you can't win or why would you want to?

~~~
james_s_tayler
Well you at least don't want to bring a pillow to a knife fight.

~~~
falcor84
Actually, wouldn't a pillow be a reasonably effective way to deflect a knife?

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james_s_tayler
I usually think of the metaphor in terms of bringing a knife to a pillow fight
as a play on "that's like bringing a knife to a gun fight" in which case my
formulation is about having an innocent bit of fun and then someone going way
overboard and doing something absolutely inappropriate. I sort of picture it
in my head like everyone is having fun and then someone whips out a knife and
then everyone starts to get very terrified.

I never really considered how a pillow would actually hold up against a knife
in a fight. My money would still be on the knife, but I take your point.

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User23
My favorite managing up pattern is the Feynman estimation technique. During
the Manhattan project he and others were asked to report on what they would be
discovering in the next quarter. Since they were doing groundbreaking work
nobody had a clue how to answer and this caused the researchers a great deal
of stress. Then they realized they could just hold back 3 months worth of
results and “estimate” the discoveries they had just made. The end result was
that management was very happy with the predictable progress and the
scientists were free to do their work unimpeded.

Applying this in contemporary corporate America is left as an exercise for the
reader.

~~~
davidlinc1
Strikes me as a method that would work very well in a world before business
analytics audits and KPIs.

~~~
User23
Just need a management consultant to give it a clever name like "superscalar
project management" and some powerpoint slides and you're good to go.

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maroonblazer
I disagree with #4, your manager giving negative feedback.

Asking a manager to clarify the feedback shouldn't put that manager on the
defensive. If the manager hasn't gone to the trouble of getting those details
then they need to be educated on how to deliver negative feedback.

Instead of simply saying "I hear you. I will be more mindful of that in the
future.", a more productive response would be:

"Based on what you've shared it's not clear to me exactly what I did wrong or
how I might do things differently in a similar situation in the future. Are
there additional details you can share? <if they answer no:> Can you get those
details so that I can make this a part of my learning plan?" <if they waffle:>
What advice do you have for me for how to better handle this situation in the
future?"

You've now educated the manager as to what level of detail you need when it
comes to feedback. They should know that they can't just toss incoming
feedback over the transom. They need to dig into the details and do what it
takes to help you grow.

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thesumofall
I believe the better approach to #1 is to:

\- say that you’re not sure

\- articulate an hypothesis of what it might be to the best of your knowledge
(it's likely you’re going to be 80% right)

\- propose to launch an effort / work stream / project to figure it out

In many cases managers are just happy with an 80% answer and will reject to
waste efforts to dive deeper. Managers can deal with uncertainty and with
situations where the 80% answer is wrong. What they typically don’t like is
being stalled

~~~
tchaffee
> articulate an hypothesis of what it might be to the best of your knowledge
> (it's likely you’re going to be 80% right)

Please don't do this. Many managers and clients have a far better bullshit
detector than you give them credit for. They might never say it directly to
you, but you just lost their respect by trying to guess instead of being
honest. When programmers I interview try to bullshit their way through an
answer they clearly don't know, it's almost always the end of the interview.
Especially because I make it super clear at the beginning that I prefer "I
don't know". A solid "I don't know but I do know I can get you an answer or an
update in a couple of hours" is the approach that earns my respect every time.
And likely you'll be right 100% of the time with that answer.

~~~
thesumofall
This is absolutely _not_ about bullshitting your way out of it. Far from it.
It is about articulating an hypothesis (based on your experience) of what the
answer is most likely to be. It is saying: "We're not yet sure why the server
crashed, but from my experience it is most of the times the A/C system, for
which I would suggest checking the logs now". It is honest, articulates a way
forward, and might in many meetings just be sufficient to keep the discussion
moving forwards. Again, it is the job of a manager to deal with controlled
uncertainty.

~~~
tchaffee
That's not the situation described in the article. The situation described in
the article is pretty specific: Someone asks you something _you don 't know_.
It's right in the title. And it goes on to describe a situation in which you
_may end up making up something on the spot, trying to be as vague as possible
so you can 't be wrong_.

So yes, if your hypothesis is _just something you made up_ only so you can
have an answer, then please don't do that. I don't care how solid the guess
is. It's still a guess just to have an answer.

In the situation you described, you _do know something_ and you're sharing
that knowledge. I have no problem with people sharing that knowledge. It's not
a hypothesis. It's the opposite of "you don't know". It's knowledge about the
history of the situation.

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fraggle222
Not sure if they cover...

A typical scenario is that you are in a corporate culture where, for whatever
reason your manager does not "manage down", like at all. Meaning that they are
not giving you direction and nor are they listening to any needs, direction
from you (ok, maybe once per quarter?). Your interactions with them (if you
are letting them set the schedule) are very limited. Now that can be great or
bad.

Typically though these people (by essence of being someone you report to)
control more corporate power than you do. They can perhaps authorize work,
hire 10s of additional resources, approve muilti million dollar projects, set
a budget for next year, etc. So it becomes imperative for you to 'manage up'
if you want to achieve more than what you are being fed.

Just how to do that, maybe this book covers. Hope so.

~~~
drugme
_A typical scenario is that you are in a corporate culture where, for whatever
reason your manager does not "manage down", like at all._

Indeed, there's a whole range of dysfunctional (and sometimes simply toxic)
managerial behaviors that seem to occur very frequently int the workplace, and
for which it'd be nice to see some advice as to how to deal with them.

But overall the advice in this particular article seems very superficial.

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bicubic
Is there any similar themed advice for managing same-seniority coworkers
handballing their responsibilities?

Person A owns task

Person A: I don't know much about task, but person B seems like an expert.
Person B, please take over task

Person B is no more or less qualified at task than person A

~~~
lolptdr
Perhaps you shouldn't allow handover of such responsibility or tasks. Force
Person A to own task but allow Person B to assist Person A. Surely Person A
won't mind help Frontera on B.

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sjg007
The best thing you can do is work for a good manager. If you have a crappy
manager find a way out to get under another manager or otherwise just outlast
them.

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rwallace
Good article! I agree with most of it.

However,

'As a leader, you don't want to tell your team that the reason things are
changing is "because _ made me do it." That makes it seem like you have no
power, as though you do things just because you are told to. It certainly
won't inspire confidence in your team or make them any more likely to embrace
the decision.'

Are you sure?

Do you really want to tell your team "We are painting the building purple
because fairies love the color purple and will bring us good luck"? Especially
when your team already knows you personally don't believe in fairies?

It seems to me "Look, the CEO is firmly committed to the belief in fairies,
and has made the policy decision that we are going to paint the building
purple. It's up to us to implement that decision," is the least bad thing to
say in that situation.

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drugme
_So, when a decision is made that doesn 't make sense to you, here are the
steps:_

 _2\. Don 't disagree;_

This sounds like a recipe for a toxic work culture where everyone is walking
on eggshells and fearful not only of stating their opinions - but in many
cases, making simple statements about objective reality.

~~~
zeroxfe
Great job taking the comment entirely out of context.

The next part of that sentence is "ask about the context and reasons for the
change", immediately followed by, "Start with your manager or the main
decision maker if you have a prior relationship, and then escalate up the
chain of command together (rather than just emailing your thoughts to the
CEO)."

> making simple statements about objective reality.

It is extremely rare that decisions are "objectively" bad -- that was the main
point of that section. In fact, the article explicitly says: "Remember there
is someone in the chain who thinks this is a good idea; that is why it is
being implemented. So, it is worth your time to try to understand the "why"
behind this idea"

~~~
drugme
_Great job taking the comment entirely out of context._

I read and understood the full context. I was keeping it short for the sake of
simplicity.

The basic message they're conveying is, after all: "If you have disagreements,
don't express them."

 _It is extremely rare that decisions are "objectively" bad -- that was the
main point of that section._

I was referring not to the _decisions_ , but to the _assertions about reality_
that are used to justify them.

~~~
sokoloff
I read the advice vastly more as "don't immediately express your counter-
argument; instead, first _ask_ questions and seek to understand how the
decision was reached; after that, you're in a more informed position to
discuss intelligently the decision and how that intersects with the way you
see things".

See also Chesterton's Fence: [https://www.chesterton.org/taking-a-fence-
down/](https://www.chesterton.org/taking-a-fence-down/)

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yanslookup
Question for the crowd: how to manage up a politically savvy skip manager that
routinely trivializes engineering effort? They couch it in sarcasm, something
like "oh you can build that in like 2 minutes, it's just an SQL query and 3
lines of python, right?"

~~~
alexk
I think you would find negotiation practices helpful, e.g. check out the book
"Never split the difference" to learn some negotiation techniques and
"Elephant in the brain" to understand that this behavior is likely not about
technology.

~~~
yanslookup
It's not a negotiation in good faith because they are "just joking man!"

~~~
alexk
As someone who actually builds things you have more leverage than you think in
this or any other conversation with your manager, you need to learn how to use
it better.

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_pmf_
I've found "Extreme Ownership" by Jocko Willink good for getting into the
mindset of managing up without a nagging / second guessing touch.

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alttab
Amazon LPs:

1) Customer Obsession

2) Ownership

3) Disagree and Commit

4) Vocally Self-Critical / Earns Trust / Learn and be Curious

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imhelpingu
Or instead acting like personal PR is your only contribution to the species,
you can just say reasonable things that make sense including things like "I
don't know" on a circumstantial basis using your human brain and social
instincts.

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Confusion
I think the abstract pattern here is: own it.

~~~
sunir
It is slightly different: lower anxiety.

You do that by being reliable, honest, receptive, taking ownership, mitigating
risk.

But the human dimension is emotional. Your counterparts feel it as anxiety.
They will ultimate adjust their internal feelings to you based on how anxious
you make them.

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tom169
Thank you. Good read.

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wahjiwah
This is good advice

