[fizx]

Hi, sometime middle-manager here. The goal isn't to have me make decisions, its to let people around me make decisions quickly and well enough that most of the time it works out, and when it doesn't, we can roll back easily.

If this isn't working out, I hire experts to improve the quality of decision-making, with me making decisions as a last resort.

[jncfhnb]

So… the goal is for you to do nothing? Except not impede people making decisions and hiring consultants when you, not the person closer to the issue, thinks it’s not working?

[kbenson]

As someone squarely in this position for the last few years (from a prior senior engineering position), I would say my job is to try to emulate the decisions and guidance my manager would give, but to more people than he has time to do it for.

This is fairly obvious because for a while he was doing that for too many people because we couldn't find a person for the position. If I can speed up answers and feedback and provide direction quickly in a way that's similar to what he would have do for people that often ended up waiting for him because his schedule was too busy, then I'm doing at least one part of my job well.

The more layers of this there are the more likely the message might be garbled by that game of telephone, but ultimately people can only handle so many relationships successfully, especially when they require specific regular action, and delegation (which is all middle management is essentially) is one approach that's been found to work around this.

When I'm doing my job well, the people I manage have clear directions and expectations, and if the company is managed well those expectations are seen as achievable by all involved, and if they aren't it's my job to communicate that either up or down the structure. I don't think it's sane to assume that will just naturally occur once a workforce gets big enough, so something is needed to help that along, and managers are one way to do so.

[toyg]

Basically you're describing a lieutenant/sergeant relationship. The sargeant will try to give each private the same commands that the lieutenant would give, with necessary adjustments for the immediate realities of the field.

[matwood]

Yep. It's frowned upon in some companies to use the military as an example, but military management has been forged often times in blood. The concept that you're hitting on is called 'commanders intent'. Basically we need to climb that hill over there, but the commander is not going to tell someone exactly how because they won't be in the situation. They trust the people on the ground will make good decisions.

I give my team all the information I have, convey my/the company's intent, and let them work. That way, I don't have to make every little decision. I trust they will make good decisions and come to me if there's a problem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intent_(military)#Commander's_...

Commander's intent (CSI) plays a central role in military decision making and planning. CSI acts as a basis for staffs and subordinates to develop their own plans and orders to transform thought into action, while maintaining the overall intention of their commander.

I'll also add that it builds ownership since the people doing the work are making the execution plans. IMO, it's the really the only way to manage if the goal is to get things done.

[jncfhnb]

I think this is not a good explanation. “Get on the hill” is a bad order. “We want to get on that hill to gain fire control on that road” is much better. Because that means the on the ground troops can achieve the objective through an entirely different means if the hill is not viable.

Critically, and this is why military analogies don’t work with most large orgs, the on the ground folks don’t need to confirm with top leadership that an alternative tactic is sufficient. In messy business orgs, middle managers play it way too conservatively and try to get their bosses to green light every decision by presenting them a synthesized and watered down view (“the hill is well defended, the other hill is better”). But this is slower, error prone, and at risk of compromise to minor communication failures because the condensed time and attention for the synthesized logic won’t capture the full reasoning (“I don’t get why the second hill is better. Just do the first one”).

[matwood]

You're right on expanding get on the hill. I didn't want to get too much in the weeds, but thank you for explaining it better.

I would push back a bit on your second point and say that there are many decisions around tactics made in business that are not confirmed with higher ups. This is why your expanded first point is so important. People at all levels of the org are making decisions all the time and you want them to have the most complete picture possible when doing so.

[9659]

a time honored and tested management philosophy.

[toyg]

Indeed.

Unironically, a lot of modern war material like "Band of Brothers" is relevant to management and leadership in vertical organizations - which is what most companies are, at the end of the day.

[jncfhnb]

Ok but I think this is still just bad.

If person A manages 6 things and thinks it is too much, he should instead manage 3 things and have a new person B manage the other 3. Not elevate himself to manage person B and C who each have 3 things.

You say your job is to emulate what they would do, but also that there’s a game of telephone going on. That implies your boss is still very much in the loop of those actively communicating, and what’s probably happening is you’re bubbling up lower and lower fidelity information up the chain for them to make decisions.

You should never have the role of trying to emulate what your boss would do. If you’re going to manage managers, then those managers below you should have some sort of functional/technical expertise that warrants them being independent managers or they should have enough autonomy that your relationship is only about allocating higher level resources to them.

[kbenson]

If you have 100 people at the company you should have 19 managers with about 5 people each? And then the CEO has to manage those 19 managers, and has 19 people under them (because what is a CEO other than the person managing what's done at the top level?)? What about when the company has 1000 people?

It's all fine to you should just split it up more, but that only makes sense if you look at the part of the system (company) in isolation, which you can't do. It's intricately linked to the parts around it.

What you're recommending isn't even the waterbed theory of complexity, where you push down complexity in one area and it pops up in another, this is the ostrich theory of complexity, where if you stick your head in the sand and ignore everything then it doesn't matter.

[jncfhnb]

Org structure should not be a function of number of heads. If you follow some logic that each manager should have n reports you’ll make an idiotically tall structure. It’s basically the stupidest thing you can do. Which many organizations do. Most large orgs have a terrible design. It’s difficult.

Effective org design is about properly delegating authority. If you need to get your boss’ permission to do things, you’re friction, not lube. If your job is synthesizing others’ synthesis, so that a real decision maker can do things; you’re friction. If you’re a manager whose sole job is to try and emulate someone who is a better manager in a higher position, you’re friction.

It’s more useful to directly oversee a smaller number of important useful things that you can handle well than to hire two new people and manage them managing others.

Managers of managers are useful at the junctions where one manager doesn’t have the skill set to manage a necessary sub function at a tactical level. A CTO, CFO, CHRO, etc. at the top. Maybe a tech team lead or a design team lead or a financial team lead (varying by if you’re organized by product or function).

When a “manager” is not responsible for any tactical decision making, and instead just broad strategic direction, it’s much easier to govern a wide team of independently effective members. But if it grows too much? SPLIT the manager of manager duties with someone else. Don’t create another layer of manager of manager of managers who then by necessity also need to get split anyway.

> What you're recommending isn't even the waterbed theory of complexity, where you push down complexity in one area and it pops up in another, this is the ostrich theory of complexity, where if you stick your head in the sand and ignore everything then it doesn't matter.

Fuck off with this bullshit nothing assertion.

[kbenson]

Congratulations, you've avoided providing any useful details about your suggestion again. I'll ask a different way. If your plan is to just add more managers in a single level above the bottom, how do you expect the CEO to deal with the hundreds of managers that would report directly to them, that they would need to relay the company direction to and get feedback from?

Very specifically, without a tree structure, how does this scale for those above this layer of hundreds of managers at the same level in your preferred solution presented here? Are you just assuming that it's not a problem and therefore doesn't need to be addressed?

[pgwhalen]

A more charitable interpretation might be that their goal is to create space for good decisions to be made, and to de-risk those decisions.

Unless your mental model of a manager is "person who make decisions," than that is far from "doing nothing."

[jmopp]

It's kind of like how the north star for a programmer is to automate themselves out of the job. A good manager will bring the best out of their reports, which leads to making good decisions and executing on them.

[adastra22]

In the same sense that a machine maintenance person’s job is to not be involved in the machinery. Their job is not to operate the machine, but to make sure the machine operates correctly all on its own without intervention. Doing this correctly does take a lot of work.

[seb1204]

I like this, but I think also that a machine maintenance person has a very clear job description, defined set of tools and schedule to follow.

[xingped]

I mean you can say that, but that has never been my experience. Neither, I'm sure, has it been many other peoples' experiences either.

[sodapopcan]

Naw, it was my experience once. It’s rare, though.