Am roughly in middle management. Can confirm. Basically I and everyone around me is trying to walk some line between take enough responsibility to get results (the primary thing you’re evaluated on) but don’t take so much that if something goes south you’ll be in trouble. Generally we don’t want the pain to fall on ICs (“individual contributor” employees whose scope of responsibility is ultimately limited to their own labor since they need sponsorship from someone else or a process to commit to big decisions) unless they messed up for reasons within their control.
I generally see the important split as who is responsible and who is accountable. Responsible means here something like “who has to do the work” and accountable means something like “who made the decision and thus gets the credit or blame”. ICs do well when they do a good job doing whatever they were told to do, even if it’s the wrong thing. Management-types do well when the outcomes generate whatever we think is good, usually whatever we believe is driving shareholder value or some proxy of it. ICs get in trouble when they are inefficient, make a lot of mistakes, or otherwise produce low quality work. Management-types are in trouble when they make the wrong call and do something that produces neutral or negative value for something the company is measuring.
Basically I think all the maze stuff is just what happens when middle management manages to wirehead the organization so we’re no longer held accountable for mistakes. I’ve not actually seen much serious mazes in my life because I’ve mostly worked for startups of various sizes, and in startups there’s enough pressure from the executives on down to hold people accountable for stuff. I think it’s only if the executives get on board with duping the board and shareholders so they can wirehead that things fall apart.
Am roughly in middle management. Can confirm. Basically I and everyone around me is trying to walk some line between take enough responsibility to get results (the primary thing you’re evaluated on) but don’t take so much that if something goes south you’ll be in trouble. Generally we don’t want the pain to fall on ICs (“individual contributor” employees whose scope of responsibility is ultimately limited to their own labor since they need sponsorship from someone else or a process to commit to big decisions) unless they messed up for reasons within their control.
I generally see the important split as who is responsible and who is accountable. Responsible means here something like “who has to do the work” and accountable means something like “who made the decision and thus gets the credit or blame”. ICs do well when they do a good job doing whatever they were told to do, even if it’s the wrong thing. Management-types do well when the outcomes generate whatever we think is good, usually whatever we believe is driving shareholder value or some proxy of it. ICs get in trouble when they are inefficient, make a lot of mistakes, or otherwise produce low quality work. Management-types are in trouble when they make the wrong call and do something that produces neutral or negative value for something the company is measuring.
Basically I think all the maze stuff is just what happens when middle management manages to wirehead the organization so we’re no longer held accountable for mistakes. I’ve not actually seen much serious mazes in my life because I’ve mostly worked for startups of various sizes, and in startups there’s enough pressure from the executives on down to hold people accountable for stuff. I think it’s only if the executives get on board with duping the board and shareholders so they can wirehead that things fall apart.