Why Skip-Levels Were Overrated
Eighteen months of monthly skip-levels. Most of what they surfaced was already sitting in three Slack channels I had stopped reading.
Angle
Management
12 posts
Two hires failed before I blamed the job description
Two hires failed the same role in under a year. The candidates were not the problem; the spec was. Why the third hire only works after you rewrite the job.
The Quiet Director
She shipped on time every quarter for two years. At her review, the CEO called her 'not visible enough.'
How a Promotion Killed a Function
She was marketing's best IC. Eight months after the VP promotion, the function had stopped shipping. Why the IC-to-manager step fails so often.
The 1:1 I Stopped Doing
Weekly thirty-minute slots with seven directs for two years. The first month I deleted them, nobody noticed. The second month, the team got faster.
Your one-on-one is a status meeting in disguise
Thirty minutes a week for eighteen months, opening with the Q3 rollout. The manager had built a standing meeting that wasn't management.
The director with no direct reports
The title was real. The headcount under her was zero. She'd been promoted to run a function she was the only person inside of.
When Everyone Passes, the Review Failed
Forty-seven reviews. Forty-three 'meets,' four 'exceeds,' zero 'below.' The cycle was a calibration exercise that had stopped calibrating.
The PIP Nobody Believed
Sixty days of check-ins and three signed documents produced an outcome the team called on day one. The plan wasn't improvement — it was a record for the file.
Don't promote your best engineer
He was the strongest engineer on the team. You made him a manager. Six months later he's unhappy, the team is slower, and you've got a tier-three manager.
The manager who couldn't fire anyone
He gave the same person the same feedback for fourteen months. The team learned that consequences were a rumor.
The hire who stops asking questions is gone in nine months
A new hire who stops asking questions in week three isn't adapted. They've started running the math on leaving.