[CyberFonic]

The clue in your description is that you are a software engineer in management. I would guess that most if not all the other managers are from non-technical backgrounds. Thus they are directly or indirectly indoctrinated into MBA and/or McKinsey Management Consulting group-think. Only the insecure and their sychophants would instigate the sorts of practices that you describe.

Hate to put it bluntly, but you are attempting to swim against the tide by attempting any form of debate and examination of dissent. The management team around you have played their hand. It appears that you are vastly out-numbered.

You have two choices: go with the status quo; or the highway.

[slantyyz]

> MBA and/or McKinsey Management Consulting group-think

People with MBAs come from a pretty broad set of backgrounds, and there isn't such a thing as MBA group-think.

I'm not saying that there aren't MBAs who are McKinsey types, but they don't represent the entire population of people with MBAs, not even close.

If you see a common pattern of behaviour from MBAs in the companies you've dealt with, it's more likely that the companies hiring those people were looking candidates with those characteristics.

[jbn]

"there isn't such a thing as MBA group-think"... I'm not sure how something like this can be stated as a complete utter and final truth.

On the contrary, even coming from varied backgrounds, people going for MBA (and therefore MBA holders thereafter) are surely self-selecting for some characteristics. Also, "management by objective" and other nonsense that doesn't apply to creative work, that's surely resembles MBA group-think.

As always, these things are not clear-cut, but there are nuggets of truth there.

[slantyyz]

When I did my MBA, those types of people were the minority.

We had people coming in with undergrads of all types of backgrounds, including engineering.

Anecdotally, in my work experience across multiple industries, I haven't heard anyone use the term "management by objective". I have not heard that phrase since my undergrad/MBA, so we're talking well over 25 years ago. I don't think anyone that I personally know with an MBA who would use that term with a straight face.

[jbn]

of course, MBO would not be the term used publically, but it could very well be how management is carried out nevertheless :-)

Another way of looking at it is that not everything can be summarized in Excel spreadsheet, sometimes you have to know something of the work to be able to manage it properly.

[slantyyz]

Yeah but MBO isn't an MBA thing. It's a bunch of long-held, common-sense ideas that had been proven to work in some settings and got some branding and codification wrapped around it to sell books. If you asked someone who had a lot of work experience without an MBA to come up with some type of organizational strategy, many would come up with MBO without the naming.

It's not very different from Agile or Scrum. They've been proven to work in some settings, and when they fail in a mismatched setting, the entire methodology will get a bad rap, along with the people who promoted them.

[jbn]

Agreed.

[anonymous_smile]

They are mostly technical people, actually. Management style, though, might not be the best. What would I do if I had any hope of influencing things?

[marcinzm]

>Only the insecure and their sychophants would instigate the sorts of practices that you describe.

As the replies to this Ask HN show many people disagree. These are logical and practical solutions to the problem of coordinating large groups of people. Public dissent amongst decision makers tends to be very toxic and lead to very unpleasant work environments. That is very different than private and upwards dissent.