[hilariously]

Do you think that the social climbers who approved these obviously crappy projects learned anything?

I have worked with all levels of engineers who come into a project glassy eyed about some technology, sure, but if you are part of the team approving a project and you cant produce a realistic budget then your management is bogus as hell.

I have worked on a ton of these vanity projects, and when I voice my concerns its clear nobody is out to learn anything, they are here to look good and avoid looking bad, that's about it.

Get some articles published, go to some conferences, get a new job with a new title somewhere else, laugh on your way out.

[pc86]

> Do you think that the social climbers who approved these obviously crappy projects learned anything?

Just the framing of this question makes it seem like you simply don't like people in management / decision-makers, and you want something bad to happen to them. Maybe that's wrong, hopefully it is, but the rest of the comment doesn't do much to dissuade me of that impression either.

[Aurornis]

Cutting down anyone who gets a promotion or finds success is a culture in itself (see Tall Poppies Syndrome for example). Factual accuracy is not a concern, they only want to be angry at people in higher positions.

[hilariously]

Something bad to happen to "them"? There's no diaphanous them, just the specific social climbing crap decision makers facing no consequences of any type.

I have worked with many hard working and caring managers, and they are generally eclipsed by said social climbers presenting at conferences every other week about know-nothing topics jumping from place to place leaving bankrupt companies and massive layoffs in their wake.

I see them posting on LI right now :)

[ljm]

Why are you thinking more about the people that piss you off than the ones that you consider hard working and caring?

You have a massive chip on your shoulder, dare I say that's why you've had many caring managers and now you're seeing them all as 'social climbers'.

Did one manager call you out on something and you torched the entire thing?

[DaSHacka]

Are we reading the same comment? GP clearly separated the "caring managers" from the "LinkedIn corposlop ladder climbers", and even explicitly stated the issue with the latter is that they are usurping the former in moving up the ranks of the corporate hierarchy.

This isn't unique to GP either, it's not exactly uncommon nowadays for people to hate the corpo-techbro MBA LinkedIn archetype.

[tclancy]

>There's no diaphanous them

Autocorrect mistake? I doubt anyone was imaging semi-transparent beings wafting gently in a summer breeze.

So what would you call your alternative to blameless postmortems? FWIW, "walking the plank" is already in use.

[hilariously]

I was imagining it, as the people who are the ghostly images of the "them" out "there" that are often referred to when people are generally upset at authority or the system, that's not what I was trying to talk about.

I'd say the pirates had it right and keel hauling is the way to go.

[array_key_first]

I don't think it's that managers or decision makers are bad, I think moreso it's that, for most companies, the criteria for promotion are absolutely busted. And, it creates a culture of self-preservation, which affects ICs, too.

What I mean is that people are selected for leadership based not off of their leadership ability, but rather their political ability and ambition. The reason we see increasingly delusionally confident people as we climb the corporate ladder is because the people promoting them are forced to make their decisions based off of small, distilled data.

So, basically, bullshitters rise to the top. It only makes sense given the constraints of the system. Metrics help, sure, but firstly those arent use too much for management promotions. And secondly, they can be gamed, and often are.

At the very tippy top you have c-suite, who are often so delusionally confident it borders on psychosis. After a certain point it just becomes lying, but the truth is that people like to hear good things. We just can't help it.

And, for self-preservation: most companies have an absolutely rotten, toxic, and even evil culture. For most companies, the majority of employees are focused on self-preservation. And nobody will say that out loud!

But when managers get into that self preservation mindset, it can get really ugly. It becomes lying, organization sabotage, fudging documents, in-fighting, etc to try to stay afloat. Especially as the organization appears to be less stable.

[pc86]

> What I mean is that people are selected for leadership based not off of their leadership ability, but rather their political ability and ambition.

Leadership is political - you have to get people to want to follow you. So it makes sense the people successful at getting into and advancing through leadership positions are able to do that.

As far as ambition, does that mean anything other than "wants the job?"

It sounds like you're arguing better leaders would be people who can't lead and don't want the job in the first place?

[array_key_first]

Ambition is good, but too much ambition becomes clawing, desperation. It's pathetic mostly, but it works. Because, again, people like hearing good things. So their leaders like hearing that they want the job really really badly and would do anything for it.

I think you're misinterpreting me. I spelled it out pretty clearly, I think. By politics I don't mean being liked, I mean being manipulative. Which is a related, but different, thing.

The delusional confidence is also a form of manipulation. Basically you influence others perception of you by lying and distorting reality. And you use emotions as a weapon. People like good feeling emotions, so you do actions to make those emotions appear in people. Flattery, deception, undeserved confidence, that type of thing.

The best leaders are people who are honest, rational, level-headed, and have a community based outlook. Meaning, they put the needs of the company and their team first.

The leaders we actually get are almost the exact opposite. They're individualistic, selfish, deceitful, and emotionally manipulative.

The reason that happens is because of how we decide promotions and the culture of the company.

[simonw]

I've certainly learned a great deal from my own crap glassy-eyed decisions throughout my career.