Let’s talk about bad managers

Reading the news has got me in a dark mood¹ , so let’s talk about bad managers.

Bad managers use you to solve their problems, not help you solve yours.

Bad managers take credit and don’t give credit.

Bad managers think it’s weak to say “I don’t know” and don’t ask “What do you think?”²

Bad managers desire more influence, more reports, and more budget, because they put their success ahead of the company and you.

Bad managers make things worse, so you learn to avoid getting them involved.³

And let’s not just limit ourselves to the “selfish, power hungry, and emotionally immature” archetype. There’s also “incompetent”, “terrible communicator”, “holds a grudge and acts on it”, “plays favorites”. And my least favorite, “deceptive”.⁴

How does this happen? How are there so many bad managers?

I think it’s because 1) it’s really hard to teach from a book or in a classroom; 2) we reward people with promotions and power for achieving results and wielding influence, not for being good managers; and 3) it’s really hard to quantify the value, so we don’t even try.

What do you think is the reason? What’s the solution?

The Workshop

This is a newsletter-only section where I share a half-baked idea in hopes that y’all who are smarter than me can work it out with me.

I could use your help. I want to write a post that helps people spot red flags when reading a job description, and I’d love to crowdsource (and credit you, unless you wish to remain anonymous) what you look for.

For example, anything that references Product Owners is out. Also anything that suggests SAFe or worse. That screams bloated org that moves slowly, command & control culture, and is too scared to innovate.

So is Product reporting into a CMO, COO, or CTO (unless it’s a cofounder or GM, which becomes more of a yellow flag to be investigated). This is, once again, Product as project manager.

Another is when it’s clear the job is all about execution, and the strategy comes from on high. And no, being responsible for building the roadmap is not strategy.

One that seems to be more popular in the last year is the Director / Head of Product role that is player / coach. What is that? Is that like managing 2 PMs while PM’ing a squad of your own? Red flags all over it — smells like a founder who doesn’t actually want to let go of Product but is too busy to properly do the job.

Please reply to this email or leave a comment on this post (if you click to the web version of this newsletter, I have comments enabled) — I’d love to hear your red flags. If you happen to have links to JDs as examples, even better.

Happy Monday, my friends. It’s the first week after mid-quarter, so I hope all of your mid-quarter OKR check-ins have gone well and Q2 planning is kicking off smoothly.

1  Those of you who don’t live in Texas may have missed this story, but last week, the governor of Texas pardoned a guy who was convicted of killing a Black Lives Matter protestor in Austin, where I live. It was an open and shut case: the guy had been messaging with friends about his desire to kill protesters; he drove the 70 miles to Austin from his home and then, running a red light, drove into a crowd of protestors; a military vet legally carrying a rifle (safety on, finger off the trigger, pointed down) comes over to the car and waves for him to leave; and gets shot 5 times and dies. After being properly tried and convicted, the governor pardons him. Because, apparently, as long as you kill the people we hate, it’s now OK.

2  I’ve worked with a couple execs who, in the 6+ months of working with them, literally never once asked me “what do you think”. It triggers something really angry in my psychology. Not that I think I have all the answers. It’s the lack of collaboration and feeling dismissed, maybe.

3  At the bare, bare minimum, a manager needs to add net value to the organization above the opportunity cost of having another IC. Like, if you manage 4 engineers, you better be making those 4 engineers be more valuable than if the company instead had 5 engineers and no manager. So the fact that some people realize getting their manager involved would be of negative value is infuriating.

4  There’s two version of this, both make me crazy. One version is the person who just straight up lies. You can’t trust what they say. The other is more toxic: after a decision has been made following group discussion, they will then lobby the decision maker 1:1 after the fact and convince them to change the decision. And so now the entire organization is dealing with the whiplash plus can no longer trust that decisions made are actually made.