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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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.[/quote]

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

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. [/quote]

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. [/quote]

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.[/quote]

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