Not everything needs to be done yesterday. I've "executed" plans where leadership basically flips flops on their position. The team started putting all these hare brained ideas behind feature flags.
Wish we had this complaining guy.
A good manager doesn’t suppress complaints. They treat them as free QA. But that requires humility, which is in even shorter supply than good engineers.
Good managers listen and try to understand the difference between a person complaining because they’re closer to the problem and a person complaining because they are the problem.
This is why I hate managing people - I hate having to deal with all the egos and trying to empathize with everyone to try to get a sense of where they are coming from just to judge what's important or not, and weighing political impact of different calls. Code is simple by comparison.
My most productive time is when a manager is honest and willing to explain how the whole thing fits together.
I would say that people who complain generally do it because they are not happy. Nobody purposely do it as a way to get attention. Nobody says "I will make sure to bother everybody so that they hate me, because I love it".
Doesn't mean they are not the problem: sometimes they are, sometimes they aren't. So I join you on:
> Good managers listen and try to understand the difference between a person complaining because they’re closer to the problem and a person complaining because they are the problem.
I have seen people complain because they somehow hated their coworkers (they had a very different view of what "good code" meant). A good manager would look for a solution, like moving them in different teams. A bad manager doesn't act (it's useless to listen if you don't act on it).
Usually what complainers complain about has nothing to do with why they are unhappy. Way too often frustration with people is pointed at circumstance rather than trying to productively sort out the conflicts between the individuals.
And here is where management usually fails. A person complains about unrealistic time plans or how crappy a product will be, so management jumps into action and invent over elaborate processes around securing deadlines and quality, rather than splitting up the dysfunctional team that can't / refuses to cooperate and therefore is always late and produces sub-par quality. And the team will still be late and produce bad quality, and the complainers will still complain.
Yes, I've seen this!
Then they fire the dysfunctional team, but the problem was the incompetent management.
Often there isn't actually a fire, they're complaining about trivialities. Everybody already knows about the fire because they've complaining about at every meeting for three months. Or the thing they are complaining about can't be changed. They're actually getting sidelined because they interrupt company allhands to ask the CEO irrelevant questions, wasting the time of 50 people and no one likes them anymore.
I view dealing with chronic complainers as mentoring them to stop self-sabotaging themselves.
I feel like establishing a hierarchy may make sense here: "This person is the architect, you are not. You may disagree and make technical arguments to them, but at the end of the day, they take the decision and you have to follow it". Of course it means that the architect has to actually listen to the technical arguments, and not go "I'm the architect, I'm better, just shut up".
The best managers build consensus and try to avoid people digging in behind 'their' solutions. This is hard work.
To answer the original question: It's a bit like in romantic relationships. Trying to change personalities of others is a tough game (usually not worth it).
The only sure fire way to avoid this label being applied unjustly is always bring solutions, not complaints. Document your solutions and let it rest if leadership doesn't agree.
(Not complaining, just observing. I shipped a top selling title that used Comic Sans exclusively!)
Comic Sans' only sin was being such a good font that it became "too popular".
Really, Helvetica and Times Roman should get at least as much criticism, but they get a pass for being suitably boring.
It opens you up to vulnerability. You speak to people you don't usually speak to; you get confronted with the realities of that particular issue; office coffee for example is often a factor of budget vs cost, long-term supply and support contracts with coffee machine companies, and of course personal taste. Are you going to take on some responsibility for all that?
Of course, the other part is that you get hired for one job, stepping outside of that role to pursue something not directly impacting said job is often frowned upon. I say often because it's a bit of both, the best people will take on more and different things than what they were hired for.
Anyway. Complainers can / should get a training about "circle of influence/control", also because I doubt that work stuff is the only thing going on in their life, it can help them outside of work too. Knowing what you can change and what is outside of your control is great for your peace of mind and general attitude.
Well, are the timelines too short? Is the team member complaining, or are they pointing out actual problems with the proposed timeline? And if the complaining gets the timeline extended to something reasonable, is there a problem with it being a negotiation tactic if it works?
> Learned helplessness: complaint as despair
> Leadership move: Restore agency through small wins.
This feels like when we'd let our five year old pick out what clothes she wanted to wear. Shouldn't the leadership move here be to try to solve the source of the despair?
This article focuses on dealing with the team member, and not the sources of the complaints. Sure, some people are just negative downers. But the first three examples on the page seem like actual external problems that the complainers are noticing and voicing concern about.
(And if you think it's bad to have complainers, wait until the complainers realize that no change is forthcoming, and either stop engaging at all, or go find work somewhere better.)
Fascinating examples. I have never in my professional career heard anybody refer to these as "complaining". "Complaints", yes, but in English that has does not have the same connotation.
A good way to partition the complainers into serious and unserious groups is to ask for a written plan. Unserious complainers backoff quickly, while serious complainers will be glad someone is taking their suggestion seriously.
It's a sure was to demotivate a serious complainer. He knows the vote will be turned against him.
The only was to give him confidence is to promise that the plan will be judged objectively, not democratically.
Objectivity in tech is more often than not in the eye of the beholder.
If it is really a good idea, it will attract the attention of other serious people and become common knowledge in the organization. The shift in common knowledge is the most important change because the problem goes from something that many think they have to live with, to something that has a solution. At that point it becomes something to prioritize against everything else.
This does present some risk to leaders, it's much easier to seem incompetent when there are solutions available that are not being put to use. Leaders need to specifically address why known solutions aren't being implemented yet, and rationalize the decision.
This can be good but I've seen it weaponized before by an incompetent cto to deflect and delay any change. He would ask for written proposals on the most minute details until people just gave up trying to fix anything.
I assume that it is using a ton of ligatures, because consecutive letters always look different, but is that the only thing going on or is there something even more pernicious happening?
It’s like those people who are racist: they always make me feel better with myself because I don’t hold such beliefs. If everyone would be a saint, I would feel a bit down (because I’m not one).
I have only worked with one person in my life who was really like this though, so maybe you're just lucky and haven't experienced a truly committed negative Nancy.
giantg2•1h ago
mcny•1h ago
CharlieDigital•55m ago
I think that successful teams may have a place for a "team canary" (?): someone that is going to speak up about points of friction where most others might just end up with apathy and learn to deal with the inefficiency or friction (a "that's just how it is" attitude). Sometimes, complaints are a sign of genuine friction. Complainer may not feel like they have the authority/allotted bandwidth to remove the point of friction. When this happens, give this person some ownership of the friction points and see what happens.
brunoarueira•36m ago
mnhnthrow34•24m ago
Better to have a free, easy ability to complain about things, and if there is a good manager hanging around somewhere, they can synthesize the complaints and discover if there are solutions possible at the org level, which individual contributors might not know about or even be functionally able to own.