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Why is management universally bad
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Pretty much any job you go to, any time you pull up a job review on Glassdoor or indeed, you can bet management will always be the top consistent complaint.
Yes, it could be people who don't like to be bossed around, but at a certain point you have to ask why is it that its always a top complaint in most jobs, toxic / micro managing / favoritism management.
Top Comment: Until my current job I have never had a manager who actually received on the job training in management or leadership (they definitely aren't the same thing). My current job starts developing you as a leader in your first year after hire, so by the time you are ready to apply for management positions you already have some leadership skills. If you stop participating in the leadership program you stop getting promoted. After that it's not quite a hard requirement to have management experience prior to being hired as management, but it might as well be. To that end they offer developmental assignments. We currently have an open management position in one of our offices, so they asked for applicants, with supervisor approval, to do 6 months in that management role. Toward the end of that 6 months they will request applicants for the permanent job, sometimes the temp will get it, sometimes they don't want it, etc. So my answer about why management sucks is that they often have never been taught to do the job they now occupy. They were really good at a technical role and were promoted to management, which requires a different skill set. They hack away at it, many eventually catch on, some are naturally good at it. Having good management and good leadership requires constant education and evaluation, and from what I've seen most employers do a terrible job of it. And really maybe that's not surprising because they often don't want to train for technical roles either, so the training is often pretty minimal.
How do you break into management?
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Hi! I am an individual contributor in a job that I really enjoy. But I am curious to hear how those who currently work in management and supervise your colleagues were able to take that next step in your career.
Was it via a promotion, by applying to a a management job outside of a previous employer, etc? All insight and advice is greatly appreciated, thanks.
Top Comment: It’s a good question! I made it to management by being a good project manager and showing I could manage people that don’t already report to me and then having people directly report to me was an easy transition.
First time people manager. Dos and donts?
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I'll have some junior PMs assigned to be my direct report, this would be my first time (I've mentored a few before).
To all of the people manager here, what are some dos and donts?
If you are a junior PM yourself, what would be helpful for you?
Top Comment: Do: praise publically Don't: criticize publicly
Management folded to 24/7 on call
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Management broke and I got rugpulled, just got hired and now Im told I'll be doing 24/7 on call support to c suite one week a month.
Think I can talk my way out of it and suggest a direct phoneline through teams during the day they can use? Or am I stepping over the line here. They're wanting the team to rotate 24/7 on call to c suite which feels insane. Unless the business is down in some way I, I dont feel any issue is important enough to bother me during my offtime. Almost a quarter of my year is going to be time I have to lug a laptop around and be prepared to take a call, this feels massively invasive and a huge hit to my social life.
Any recs on how to get out of this?
Top Comment: It's all negotiable, to wit: - What constitutes "C-Suite Support?" Like, if somebody needs help with an Excel formula, is that you? Or is it more along the lines of, if the CTO loses a phone and needs to re-enroll a new device so he can access 365 and thus get a presentation underway in 2 hours? - What is the SLA for response? 5 minutes? 30 minutes? 2 hours? Will the SLA enable you to travel and do your thing? - Are you getting paid if you do have to take an on-call call? If so, at what rate? - Will you be expected to wake up others? If so, what are their teams SLA's? Like, if (to go on the previous example) somebody loses a phone, now do you have to wake up procurement to expedite a new one? Do you have to talk to your IAM lead to allow re-enrollment? Etc. There's a difference between - if you will - concierge support / hand-holding and things that are genuinely crisis-level events for the C-suite, and if 24/7 is going to be required one week a month, you need to negotiate what exactly that is. If it's emergency calls and they're occurring rarely, this likely isn't a big deal. If it means you are going to get rousted every night at 7PM by the CTO who's prepping his next preso and needs to know how powerpoint works, it probably is.
Have management roles grown less attractive?
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Would you say the average person has no interest in becoming a manager anymore, and the missing middle is putting companies at risk?
Top Comment: No, I think there is a growing realization within the business world that: Extremely talented individual contributors (ICs) should be highly valued Forcing people who excel as ICs into management is not always a good idea Dual paths to career growth -- optionality to either remain an IC, or move into management -- is a great idea I think this has meant less reliance on moving into management for continued salary/career growth, and therefore fewer people feeling like that's the best option for them. Doesn't mean nobody is interested in becoming a manager... rather, that nobody feels forced to become a manager.
Why does "management" seem to suck so much?
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I hear this so often that management at someone's work is terrible. Why? Is there something about becoming management that changes someone? Is it just that random people being promoted to positions of power even if they aren't good leaders causes problems? What has been y'all's experienced of good to bad management?
I've been mostly self employed. So I'm just curious why it seems like there's such an epidemic of bad management.
Top Comment: It's not uncommon for people to be promoted beyond their ability. Just because you're good at making or selling widgets doesn't mean you'll be good at managing people making or selling widgets. And even if you're bad at that, and you get promoted again, then there's really no correlation between not managing people well and having deep discussions regarding customer demographics and market strategies. Add to this people are bad at interviewing people. It's been unreliable at best at my current company.
Did you choose management or did ...
Main Post: Did you choose management or did ...
Everything I hate about Product Management. An increasingly unhinged rant.
Main Post:
- Looking for PM jobs on LinkedIn and being forced to go through 5 pages of Aha! Product Success Manager openings that are clearly just marketing posts aimed at PMs for their shitty project management software
- Seeing PM Influencers on social media bragging about being able to work 2 hours a day making $100k+ at their FAANG job
- Astroturfing by PM ‘coaches’ taking advantage of people desperately trying to break in
- Visiting r/ProductManagement and seeing the weekly “Does anyone else experience imposter syndrome?” thread
- Participating in said weekly thread
- Dealing with prima donna engineers who were social outcasts in school but now compensate by thinking they’re god’s gift to man because they get paid six figures to fix CSS on the corporate website made by an agency six years ago that left no documentation
- PMs who act [or are forced to act] as glorified secretaries
- The flood of generalist PMs
- The flood of ex-consultants/i-bankers/MBAs
- Dealing with engineers who refuse to respect non-technical PMs and completely ignore the importance of building a sustainable profitable business
- Going to Product conferences and listening to speakers jerk themselves off about how critical they are to their business' success. When everyone in the room knows its functions like engineering who actually build the product. Sales who make the deals happen. ETC. But Product people fight to stand on stage and bask in the glory because the role incentivizes optics above all else
- Seeing your Head of Product be on stage talking about your work, but presenting it as theirs
- Companies who treat their Product Managers as Project Managers
- Companies who retitled their Project Managers to Product Managers because it would make it easier to fill the candidate pipeline
- Having a father-in-law send you online PMP course suggestions since you’ve out of work and he thinks he's helping EVEN THOUGH YOU’RE NOT A PROJECT MANAGER AND YOU'VE TRIED EXPLAINING THIS TO HIM FOR THE LAST 8 YEARS
- Companies that have no idea what Product even does, but we need someone to manage this project so let’s just hire one and let them figure it out. Then deny all their suggestions to improve the product because leadership already signed off on the PRD and assigned a budget.
- “If you want to break into Product with 0 years of experience, you should check out Product Alliance”
- Hiring Junior PMs and expecting them to handle senior PM responsibilities because the company failed to properly budget for the team
- Hearing PMs call themselves the “CEO of the Product”
- Marty Cagan
- Finding yourself at a feature factory
- Being powerless to stop a terrible product or feature launch
- Management calls all the shots and product people are treated as silly little robots forced to implement everything, and if it fails they can conveniently shit on you for not doing it right because the feature was for sure the next iPhone of fitness apps using AI
- Asking your boss “What does success look like?” and hearing back “Make the C-Suite feel smart and good about themselves”
- “Hey it’s Mark from Sales. Sorry to be a bother, but just wanted to give you a heads-up that I already promised our largest client that the next product release would give them the ability to do a full data migration with one click. They’ve already signed the contract. No, you can not join the next client meeting.”
- Having domain experts look down on you because you don’t also have 25 years of experience working in a super specific niche. And then proceed to avoid teaching you their trade. Then get mad that you made the wrong product calls.
- “Hey it’s Tammy from Client Services. My client is dealing with a bug. Can you hop on a Zoom call? I promise it’ll only take 15 minutes.”
- Always having to put on a happy face, even though everything is burning around you
- Getting random LinkedIn messages from soon to be college grads asking how to break into Product. And when you ask them why they’re interested in Product they say “idk, it looks cool and I get to make stuff. Also, I’m graduating with my MBA in June and my undergraduate student loans are coming due so I need to make six figures ASAP”
- Finding out your PM coworker lied about their PM experience because they went to and followed Product School’s advice to make up anything if it gets you the job
- Marty Cagan
- “Follow my newsletter to get tips on how to become a more effective product leader”
- Opening up your backlog and seeing hundreds of tickets
- “Thanks a lot for the feature suggestion, Janet. I created a JIRA ticket and will prioritize it according.”
- “My Slack was set to ‘Do Not Disturb.’” “I know, but I have a question.”
- Priorities shifting because the CEO read a Business Insider article
- It takes six months to fully ramp up. You have 2 weeks.
- “But have you considered this edge case that only has a .001% chance of happening?”
- “Does anyone have resources to learn more about dark patterns? Why yes, I work as a mobile gaming PM”
- Going to Product conferences and seeing all the booths hosted by business analytics startups
I’m tired boss.
I just want a job where I have the authority to help customers solve their problems that also pays six figures with a good WLB so I have time to make another six figures selling Coursera courses as a PM influencer on the side
Edit: Wow, this post blew up! If you would like more insights on how to be a SIGMA Product Manager and hear more unhinged rants, check out my newsletter.
Edit #2: I also offer resume review services to help aspiring PMs get into FAANG. Check out my resume if you have any doubts.
Top Comment: lol’ed at Marty Cagan... then lol’ed again