Corporate America

Question

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away I was a tech lead of 10 developers.

I've seen a case when incompetent people get management positions like Product owner or Technical Program Manager.

The product owner didn't want to write requirements or didn't have any clue about how the system works. When I pointed it out, nothing changed. I was forced to accept unfinished requirements and start sprints because there was no other work for the team. He was fired only when the layoffs began.

In another case, when a manager did nothing during the development phase. A few weeks before a deadline, he started doing "seagull management," forcing people to join war room meetings to solve problems, yell and leave meetings. Most issues were in cross-team communication and must be solved by this manager at the beginning of the development phase. He still works in the company.

Is it standard practice for big companies where being nice is more important than being kind and focused on results? Why does leadership keep such people on onboard? They waste enormous budgets for nothing.

RoundUp1 · Accepted Answer

It's really so team specific, but yeah I agree. Most of the people I see get promoted to people management roles are only getting those promos because they know how to play the corporate game. I've had some great managers before in my life and it was always clear that they were in the minority among the larger corps

TechExec23 · Answer

A couple of things come to mind:1. A toxic culture should never be tolerated and if you can, you should get out. That’s not the right place for you. Constant attrition in a department raises red flags for upper management and HR and the culprit(s) will be dealt with.2. Becoming a people’s manager should not be considered a promotion. It’s a different career path: you can choose to be an individual contributor or a people’s manager. When you move from one path to the next one, your responsibilities change, the skills required to be successful change. This individual you’re describing doesn’t seem to be a fit for a management role. It’s possible that the company didn’t have a career path defined for individual contributors that extended beyond the senior roles and the only possible path was to jump over to management.

trzebra · Answer

Currently under such toxic management! Can't wait to get out of here.

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