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Comment by simula67 | Hacker News Reader

"Page was known as a tough manager inside the search giant, peppering his team with pointed questions and cutting (though usually accurate) observations. “He could come off as very harsh,” said one person who has had many encounters with Page over the years. “Until you realize it was more that he was completely lacking in EQ. I mean, zero.”"

How is asking pointed questions and making cutting observations equate to being unsympathetic ? If you care about succeeding, this type of feedback is invaluable. If you don't, then you are more likely going to use the 'he is not very nice' card to get out doing any good work.

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Have you ever busted your ass on a project and been reasonably proud of the outcome, only to be publicly excoriated and treated like an idiot when your boss points out some holes in your thinking, and focuses almost exclusively on those? Yes, the holes needed to be pointed out. But the manner in which they were pointed out probably left you feeling like shit. Especially if this happened with any appreciable frequency or regularity.

Some people will power through that sort of criticism. Some people will thrive under it. And quite a few people, including very smart and hardworking people, will be gradually demoralized by it.

As a manager, to whatever extent you are gradually demoralizing your team, you are creating inefficiencies. You are creating burnout problems, which may become turnover problems. You also risk inadvertently creating a yes-man culture, in which your opinions are deemed unassailable, and/or everyone just wants to avoid public conflict with you, and thus pleasing you becomes people's primary intellectual objective.

I've never worked for Larry Page, have no firsthand experience with his management style, and don't mean this as a commentary about him. But I have worked for people who fit this description, and while it didn't bother me too much, it sure bothered a lot of great people to an unnecessary degree.

How you give feedback matters almost as much as the accuracy or insight of your feedback.

Please note that the quoted statement does not give any specifics about how the feedback was given.

It doesn't give specific examples but it does say that it could "come off as harsh" and words like "cutting" imply that.

> "He could come off as very harsh,” said one person who has had many encounters with Page over the years. “Until you realize it was more that he was completely lacking in EQ. I mean, zero.”

I think it's pretty clear that the feedback could have been given in a more constructive manner.

Sure, just to play the devil's advocate here (I support for giving feedback in constructive manner when possible), sometimes giving a feedback in a constructive manner is simply inefficient and some manager may not have time to do it every time they think something isn't perfect.

Hello X, while I think you have done these three features A, B, C well....blah blah, you could do E in a better way by doing 1,2,3. This superfluity can add up, making some people get straight to the point.

There is almost always a way to make feedback constructive, and it doesn't necessarily involve pandering or 'shit sandwiches.'

If you are a manager, your job is to get your team to produce the right outcome - the right outcome being not just a good product but a good sustainable team.

If your team feel insulted/humiliated/upset, they are less likely to produce the right outcome in the short or long term.

Any decent manager can ask the right questions and make accurate observations whilst still making their team feel positive and valued.

For some people, it's the content rather than the presentation which makes them feel insulted/humiliated/upset. The only way to prevent the negative feelings is to fail to communicate the "your work sucks" or "your idea won't work" message.

Blaming their feelings on the manager, rather than their own egos, is wrong and harmful.

Praise in public, criticize in private. Rule 1 of management.

Also, give credit to your team, take blame yourself. That's s rule 2. Any industry, any job, these rules hold, and anyone who doesn't follow them is dysfunctional.

Some people still don't want to hear that their idea sucks, even in private.

I don't get why people are so attracted to this idea that the manager is the only party with any agency or ability to influence outcomes, while underlings are merely mechanical cogs to be properly organized by appropriate managerial incantations and social engineering.

As an underling it's great to be responsible for nothing negative, but this also means you don't really deserve much credit for the positives. Managers might throw false praise your way to manipulate you - as per your suggestion - but who cares about that?

Nothing false about it. If I'm in a management role, and things go hatstand, well the buck stop with me, that's why managers get paid the big bucks. I may have to take measures later with the individual in question if it was negligence on their part, but ensuring the success of the team and the project is what the manager is for. If I have given someone more responsibility than they are ready for, that's on me. If I have failed to implement a failsafe process/procedure that's on me. If my team aren't doing code reviews that's on me. If they are taking on unmanageable technical debt, that's on me. Etc etc.

If I'm in a software development role, and the software doesn't work, well the buck stops with me. I may need to shut down a box and spin up a larger one, but ensuring that hardware is adequate is what the developer is for. If I have given an EC2 instance more load than it is ready for, that's on me.

With this mental model, of course it's false praise, just like it would be false praise for me to give credit to my hardware.

Now I don't buy this model. But this is the logical implication of it - success is the flip side of failure.

And this is why a lot of engineers fail in management, thinking people are like computers

I've never seen a management role as something related to individual performance. I think it's rather clear that a one person team won't work better with additional manager. On average though you won't get uniform team nor a team that gets along well. And even if you do, it has its own dangers. Manager is there to make sure things happen even when people disagree on them, and to make sure the best option wins any argument, not just the loudest. It's really often like juggling with dogs and cats. That are on fire.

I prefer a "recognize and reward" management style to "insult and humiliate"

"I'm just an unpleasant person, therefore you must overlook my unpleasantness" isn't actually a thing, y'know.

Well sure it is. There are many possible responses as well, depending on personality and incentives.

There is no universal definition of an asshole, and no one is safe from being an asshole in someone's eyes, so moving right past it is definitely a valid, useful strategy.

being right is not an excuse for being a dick. its a false dichotomy to think that if you are generally respectful you are any less effective as a leader. if the same thing can be accomplished without being a douche, who would you rather work for?

Getting to show how smart you are is different that working together with a team on building great products. Everyone has flaws, why not let the other person save face and point them in the right direction instead ? Assuming you hired motivated and smart people, I find that most of the time bad decisions are due to a lack of context more than anything else. If you get to share that information they probably are going to come to the same conclusion as you are. They get to learn something and you get better employees.

Agreed. I've worked for people that are like that. I never took it personally. Because they never attacked me personally.

However, I will say that one trick I've learned over the years is to "frame the questions" as though you're both on the same side of the dialogue. You're both fighting against the thing on the other side of the table, which is the functionality / app you're creating. If you can frame questions in that way, to ensure people don't feel they're on the receiving end of personal attacks, this is invaluable and makes it easier for people to accept those "pointed questions" as valid criticism, and helps them realize that you're asking the questions only because of your undying desire to get things right. It keeps people from feeling under attack when anything they're working on gets questioned / interrogated.

While many times people think the boss always thinks they're right, generally those people are just more timid than the average person I think. If they opened up and disagreed or questioned parts of the interrogation they would realize the questioner is only opening a dialogue, not establishing that they're always going to be right and that the person needs to "fall in line".

It is possible to be pointed and direct with tact. It is called manners.

Agreed, being tactful is a good thing. But what is implied in that statement is that asking pointed questions and making accurate observations ( which could be damaging to your beliefs ) equates to being an asshole.

Yeah, the only one who looks like an asshole in these quotes is the person going on about zero "EQ".

Depends HOW you do it.

Possible, but not easy. A lot of people interpret any feedback that boils down to "this work isn't good enough" as a personal attack, no matter how nicely it's couched.

This is why I don't like to hire designers who haven't been to art school. They can't take criticism. For programmers I don't have much of heuristic for selecting ones that can handle the fact that "the bar is here and this code/solution/etc is under it".

Reminds me of a classic generalization: Normal people apply tact to what they say; nerds apply tact to what they hear.

(Robust people ask why not both?)

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