Advice to (what appears to be younger) posters: Not everyone is equal at work

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What you're not getting, OP, is that most folks don't have a sense of who the "high performers" are and don't get that they aren't in that class. So, the differentiated treatment appears arbitrary, when in fact it's actually merit based - but the mediocre employees has incomplete information and doesn't realize that's the case.

Further, most supervisors don't know how to give proper feedback, so they go around telling their employees "good job! you're doing great!" as a means to boost morale, but they don't give specific enough feedback so that individual employees can assess their strengths & weaknesses.

Now, if an enthusiastic, hard worker who maybe lacks emotional intelligence takes these "good job" comments at face value, given that it's the only feedback he gets all year, then he'll probably conclude that he is indeed doing a good job and there are no major issues. The fact that he's unaware of his weaknesses and isn't progressing is certainly on him, but I also would say that at least part of the responsibility for his stagnation is his supervisor's inability to have productive conversations around performance. These conversations don't have to be awkward, and when done well can mean getting a lot more out of your employees.

It gets back to the position that I can not spend my days babysitting employees.

I think it gets to the point that most companies are structured in such a way that in order to advance in pay & stature, you have to take on management responsibilities, but many technical subject matter experts don't actually have an interest in supervisory responsibilities, nor do they have any talent for it. Yet, the #1 reason employees leave is because of their boss - resulting in the high turn over rate that seems to have so many firms perplexed. There are a lot of new ideas about how to restructure advancement tracks so that only the people actually interested in management responsibilities take them on. It's good reading, IMO.

This is the correct response. The managers on this forum who are whining about juggling management responsibilities are not high-performing managers. Maybe they are high-performing engineers, but not managers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think you missed the point 6:39. Yes, human relations is s managerial task. But if you bring up a conflict with your manager and he/she declined to act on it, you're done. It's not time to manage the manager. It's time to manage your expectations.

6:39 here. I agree that people need to manage expectations, but I also think that any conflict should be addressed in some way or else it's likely to fester and affect productivity. I have yet to see a workplace conflict that cannot be resolved by sufficient communication about expectations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would also add that doing your best (even if your best isn't as good as some others around you) - goes a long way. I will always, always, give preference to the person who is giving me everything that he has as opposed to the person that is performing OK but mailing it in. Spend more time trying to improve your effort and less time worrying about how others are being treated.

It depends on how you define giving your best vs mailing it in. Performance matter. If you can get the job done in 40 hours, great. I would rather have someone who works their 8 hours, then goes home vs 14 hours doing the same quality work. Why? Well, the 14 hr person will burn out. It is not sustainable.

What about someone who can get their work done in 5 to 6 hours doing the same quality work as others who take 8 hours? Out of a department of around 10, 2 or 3 need 5 to 6 hours to do the job, 4 or 5 take around 8 hours, and 2 or 3 take 9 to 10 hours. Who would you rather have?

I'm one of those people who needs less time to do good work. What happens is that each year, I get more responsibilities but keep the same title and just get a basic cola increase. I currently hold the biggest portfolio in my office and I get annual rewards, with little to no cash attached, but I'm not promoted.

So I'm leaving. I think the people who feel challenged and satisfied with the job taking up 8 hrs/day are easier to hold on to, as they're less ambitious and all they might want as a perk is some flex time to work from home every now & then. That's easier to accommodate than the people who look around and see that they're getting 2-3x more done than their peers getting paid about the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What you're not getting, OP, is that most folks don't have a sense of who the "high performers" are and don't get that they aren't in that class. So, the differentiated treatment appears arbitrary, when in fact it's actually merit based - but the mediocre employees has incomplete information and doesn't realize that's the case.

Further, most supervisors don't know how to give proper feedback, so they go around telling their employees "good job! you're doing great!" as a means to boost morale, but they don't give specific enough feedback so that individual employees can assess their strengths & weaknesses.

Now, if an enthusiastic, hard worker who maybe lacks emotional intelligence takes these "good job" comments at face value, given that it's the only feedback he gets all year, then he'll probably conclude that he is indeed doing a good job and there are no major issues. The fact that he's unaware of his weaknesses and isn't progressing is certainly on him, but I also would say that at least part of the responsibility for his stagnation is his supervisor's inability to have productive conversations around performance. These conversations don't have to be awkward, and when done well can mean getting a lot more out of your employees.

It gets back to the position that I can not spend my days babysitting employees.

I think it gets to the point that most companies are structured in such a way that in order to advance in pay & stature, you have to take on management responsibilities, but many technical subject matter experts don't actually have an interest in supervisory responsibilities, nor do they have any talent for it. Yet, the #1 reason employees leave is because of their boss - resulting in the high turn over rate that seems to have so many firms perplexed. There are a lot of new ideas about how to restructure advancement tracks so that only the people actually interested in management responsibilities take them on. It's good reading, IMO.

This is the correct response. The managers on this forum who are whining about juggling management responsibilities are not high-performing managers. Maybe they are high-performing engineers, but not managers.

This is absolutely the wrong view to have. The managers job is to meet the organizational goals. Not to hand hold. Not to be a kindergarten teacher. I don't care if you perceive that person X has an issue with you. I am happy with person X's performance. Yours, well maybe not so much (in my experience, the whiners are also poorer performers).

My job is to 1) make sure the team meets the requirements, 2) make sure the group makes a profit, and 3) make sure the group is sustainable going forward. If you are not helping me with those goals, you are of little use to me. If you are interfering with the goals, then corrective action is required. My taking corrective action means I am spending time away from my goals -- which is to keep everyone employed.

If I raise an issue with a problem employee up the chain, they are gone. If you go over my head, guess what? Unless I really screwed up, you are gone. My managers are busier than me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would also add that doing your best (even if your best isn't as good as some others around you) - goes a long way. I will always, always, give preference to the person who is giving me everything that he has as opposed to the person that is performing OK but mailing it in. Spend more time trying to improve your effort and less time worrying about how others are being treated.

It depends on how you define giving your best vs mailing it in. Performance matter. If you can get the job done in 40 hours, great. I would rather have someone who works their 8 hours, then goes home vs 14 hours doing the same quality work. Why? Well, the 14 hr person will burn out. It is not sustainable.

What about someone who can get their work done in 5 to 6 hours doing the same quality work as others who take 8 hours? Out of a department of around 10, 2 or 3 need 5 to 6 hours to do the job, 4 or 5 take around 8 hours, and 2 or 3 take 9 to 10 hours. Who would you rather have?

If you work for a gov't contractor, it does not matter. You have to put in the hours. That is how we are paid. You can do more, and ideally, you (long term) get rewarded. But, if your timecard says 8 hours, and you only work 5, that is fraud.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What you're not getting, OP, is that most folks don't have a sense of who the "high performers" are and don't get that they aren't in that class. So, the differentiated treatment appears arbitrary, when in fact it's actually merit based - but the mediocre employees has incomplete information and doesn't realize that's the case.

Further, most supervisors don't know how to give proper feedback, so they go around telling their employees "good job! you're doing great!" as a means to boost morale, but they don't give specific enough feedback so that individual employees can assess their strengths & weaknesses.

Now, if an enthusiastic, hard worker who maybe lacks emotional intelligence takes these "good job" comments at face value, given that it's the only feedback he gets all year, then he'll probably conclude that he is indeed doing a good job and there are no major issues. The fact that he's unaware of his weaknesses and isn't progressing is certainly on him, but I also would say that at least part of the responsibility for his stagnation is his supervisor's inability to have productive conversations around performance. These conversations don't have to be awkward, and when done well can mean getting a lot more out of your employees.

It gets back to the position that I can not spend my days babysitting employees.

I think it gets to the point that most companies are structured in such a way that in order to advance in pay & stature, you have to take on management responsibilities, but many technical subject matter experts don't actually have an interest in supervisory responsibilities, nor do they have any talent for it. Yet, the #1 reason employees leave is because of their boss - resulting in the high turn over rate that seems to have so many firms perplexed. There are a lot of new ideas about how to restructure advancement tracks so that only the people actually interested in management responsibilities take them on. It's good reading, IMO.

This is the correct response. The managers on this forum who are whining about juggling management responsibilities are not high-performing managers. Maybe they are high-performing engineers, but not managers.

And conversely, I currently have a supervisor who really is interested in management, puts a lot of effort into it, and spends her free time reading up on how to be a better manager - yet has no subject matter expertise in the unit she's managing. But given the cross-section of responsibilities between management and expertise, she has to fake it and pretend she knows what she's talking about. On a personal level, I like her and wish her the best. On a working level, it is very difficult to have the technical substance of your work supervised by some one who lacks familiarity with it, yet neither of us can acknowledge the situation as is. I'd love to just do my thing and let her look good for it - but she has to show that she knows her stuff, and she doesn't. So she steps in to "improve" (=ruin) my work product, because if she doesn't demonstrate expertise, they'll take away her management responsibilities.

I'm sure she'll be figured out soon enough, but this corporate structure really just makes no sense at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would also add that doing your best (even if your best isn't as good as some others around you) - goes a long way. I will always, always, give preference to the person who is giving me everything that he has as opposed to the person that is performing OK but mailing it in. Spend more time trying to improve your effort and less time worrying about how others are being treated.

It depends on how you define giving your best vs mailing it in. Performance matter. If you can get the job done in 40 hours, great. I would rather have someone who works their 8 hours, then goes home vs 14 hours doing the same quality work. Why? Well, the 14 hr person will burn out. It is not sustainable.

What about someone who can get their work done in 5 to 6 hours doing the same quality work as others who take 8 hours? Out of a department of around 10, 2 or 3 need 5 to 6 hours to do the job, 4 or 5 take around 8 hours, and 2 or 3 take 9 to 10 hours. Who would you rather have?

I'm one of those people who needs less time to do good work. What happens is that each year, I get more responsibilities but keep the same title and just get a basic cola increase. I currently hold the biggest portfolio in my office and I get annual rewards, with little to no cash attached, but I'm not promoted.

So I'm leaving. I think the people who feel challenged and satisfied with the job taking up 8 hrs/day are easier to hold on to, as they're less ambitious and all they might want as a perk is some flex time to work from home every now & then. That's easier to accommodate than the people who look around and see that they're getting 2-3x more done than their peers getting paid about the same.

This is industry dependent. In my industry, people are rewarded over time. Not in 6 months...but over 5 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What you're not getting, OP, is that most folks don't have a sense of who the "high performers" are and don't get that they aren't in that class. So, the differentiated treatment appears arbitrary, when in fact it's actually merit based - but the mediocre employees has incomplete information and doesn't realize that's the case.

Further, most supervisors don't know how to give proper feedback, so they go around telling their employees "good job! you're doing great!" as a means to boost morale, but they don't give specific enough feedback so that individual employees can assess their strengths & weaknesses.

Now, if an enthusiastic, hard worker who maybe lacks emotional intelligence takes these "good job" comments at face value, given that it's the only feedback he gets all year, then he'll probably conclude that he is indeed doing a good job and there are no major issues. The fact that he's unaware of his weaknesses and isn't progressing is certainly on him, but I also would say that at least part of the responsibility for his stagnation is his supervisor's inability to have productive conversations around performance. These conversations don't have to be awkward, and when done well can mean getting a lot more out of your employees.

It gets back to the position that I can not spend my days babysitting employees.

I think it gets to the point that most companies are structured in such a way that in order to advance in pay & stature, you have to take on management responsibilities, but many technical subject matter experts don't actually have an interest in supervisory responsibilities, nor do they have any talent for it. Yet, the #1 reason employees leave is because of their boss - resulting in the high turn over rate that seems to have so many firms perplexed. There are a lot of new ideas about how to restructure advancement tracks so that only the people actually interested in management responsibilities take them on. It's good reading, IMO.

This is the correct response. The managers on this forum who are whining about juggling management responsibilities are not high-performing managers. Maybe they are high-performing engineers, but not managers.

And conversely, I currently have a supervisor who really is interested in management, puts a lot of effort into it, and spends her free time reading up on how to be a better manager - yet has no subject matter expertise in the unit she's managing. But given the cross-section of responsibilities between management and expertise, she has to fake it and pretend she knows what she's talking about. On a personal level, I like her and wish her the best. On a working level, it is very difficult to have the technical substance of your work supervised by some one who lacks familiarity with it, yet neither of us can acknowledge the situation as is. I'd love to just do my thing and let her look good for it - but she has to show that she knows her stuff, and she doesn't. So she steps in to "improve" (=ruin) my work product, because if she doesn't demonstrate expertise, they'll take away her management responsibilities.

I'm sure she'll be figured out soon enough, but this corporate structure really just makes no sense at all.

We went through a phase like this in my company. They hired PM's without technical expertise to supervise complex scientific/engineering problems. As a group, the failed miserably. It was a disaster for the company.

[Anonymous]

The PIA is always let go (pain in the *ss).

[Anonymous]

This is an interesting thread.

As a manager, I support the OP’s general point.

In fact, I work in an environment where other managers treat everyone equally and this has created tension with the high performers in the various groups – especially at review and bonus time. Folks may not know who the high performers are in a group, but they certainly know who the low performers are. So I get that managers do not feel a need to babysit and to be the first line mediation on employee disputes, but it is important to understand the underlying dynamics of the dispute. I would venture to say that, many times, the current dispute is a result of a manager not taking a prior action to nip something in the bud. I am not the world’s best manager yet, although I try. However, I have worked very hard to understand the hot buttons of my staff and most good managers do that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What you're not getting, OP, is that most folks don't have a sense of who the "high performers" are and don't get that they aren't in that class. So, the differentiated treatment appears arbitrary, when in fact it's actually merit based - but the mediocre employees has incomplete information and doesn't realize that's the case.

Further, most supervisors don't know how to give proper feedback, so they go around telling their employees "good job! you're doing great!" as a means to boost morale, but they don't give specific enough feedback so that individual employees can assess their strengths & weaknesses.

Now, if an enthusiastic, hard worker who maybe lacks emotional intelligence takes these "good job" comments at face value, given that it's the only feedback he gets all year, then he'll probably conclude that he is indeed doing a good job and there are no major issues. The fact that he's unaware of his weaknesses and isn't progressing is certainly on him, but I also would say that at least part of the responsibility for his stagnation is his supervisor's inability to have productive conversations around performance. These conversations don't have to be awkward, and when done well can mean getting a lot more out of your employees.

This is very true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you missed the point 6:39. Yes, human relations is s managerial task. But if you bring up a conflict with your manager and he/she declined to act on it, you're done. It's not time to manage the manager. It's time to manage your expectations.

6:39 here. I agree that people need to manage expectations, but I also think that any conflict should be addressed in some way or else it's likely to fester and affect productivity. I have yet to see a workplace conflict that cannot be resolved by sufficient communication about expectations.

If by "resolved," you mean one of the employees leaves, then yes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would also add that doing your best (even if your best isn't as good as some others around you) - goes a long way. I will always, always, give preference to the person who is giving me everything that he has as opposed to the person that is performing OK but mailing it in. Spend more time trying to improve your effort and less time worrying about how others are being treated.

It depends on how you define giving your best vs mailing it in. Performance matter. If you can get the job done in 40 hours, great. I would rather have someone who works their 8 hours, then goes home vs 14 hours doing the same quality work. Why? Well, the 14 hr person will burn out. It is not sustainable.

What about someone who can get their work done in 5 to 6 hours doing the same quality work as others who take 8 hours? Out of a department of around 10, 2 or 3 need 5 to 6 hours to do the job, 4 or 5 take around 8 hours, and 2 or 3 take 9 to 10 hours. Who would you rather have?

I'm one of those people who needs less time to do good work. What happens is that each year, I get more responsibilities but keep the same title and just get a basic cola increase. I currently hold the biggest portfolio in my office and I get annual rewards, with little to no cash attached, but I'm not promoted.

So I'm leaving. I think the people who feel challenged and satisfied with the job taking up 8 hrs/day are easier to hold on to, as they're less ambitious and all they might want as a perk is some flex time to work from home every now & then. That's easier to accommodate than the people who look around and see that they're getting 2-3x more done than their peers getting paid about the same.

+1 except that instead of leaving I'm taking more personal time at work.

[Anonymous]

Here is how I finally overcame self doubt and accepted I'm an A+ employee.
When my employer has a problem he needs solved, even it it's outside my functional area, he assigns it to me. Cause bitches get shit done.

I get good raises, flexible schedule, etc. but the hatred of my colleagues too. Who probably bemoan it's not fair.
Ah well.

[Anonymous]

This thread depresses me as a manager.

Of course team conflict matters. It impacts morale and performance.

I have rules I run my teams by:

1) If you did the work, you present it. Even if it's to senior management. I'll coach you, and I'll step in if t goes sideways but there's no need for hierarchy most of the time.

2) Get shit done. I don't care if you work from home, from your yacht or half drunk so as long as the work is completed and completed well. You are done at 2pm? Cool. Go have a beer, I don't care. It's not done and you go have a beer? I care.

3) Try and solve your own problems when you can. If you need me, call me. I'll help. But if you don't tell me, I can't help and I can't be expected to know every detail going on at all levels.

4) Never leave me surprised in front of my boss and I'll never leave you hanging either. If something is fucked, tell me. I'll respect you for telling me and I'll do something to improve it - or at least I'll tell you why I can't fix it. Tell me nothing and it blows up, I'll be disappointed.

5) I don't care what your last performance review said, good or bad. You get a fresh slate with me. In fact, I'm not even going to read it so as not to color my perception.

6) My prof goals is based on how my business results are but my personal goals are measured in how happy my teams are. I'd rather have a kick ass happy team and less income than the opposite. Success for me is 0% turnover and my door being beat down to join my team. I tell my teams to think about that the next time they aren't sure how I'll react to something.

7) I pay for performance. Do good work, I'll make sure you get what you deserve. No "time in role" or "when was the last time you got promoted" crap. Top performers deserve to be treated as such, or the market will eat them. Flip side is, if you aren't in that group I'll tell you bluntly why and I hope you respect me for it. Most managers will shy away from that conversation and just want you to stick around.