Another point I’ve heard made a few times (and at-least-a-little agree with):
Let’s say Bob transitions from COO at a mid-sized org to finance manager at a small org. Bob has done finances before, and within a few months has set up some excellent systems. He now only needs to spend 10 hours a week on finances, and tells his manager (Alice) that he’s interested in taking on other projects.
Alice doesn’t currently have projects for Bob, but Alice and Bob saw this coming and set clear expectations that Bob would sometimes run out of things to do. Bob was fine with this, he’s happy to spend his extra time at home with the kids.
But also… Bob notices that their HR systems could use an upgrade. He writes up a plan and shares it at the next team meeting. Some people think this is a good idea, but the HR manager doesn’t want to implement the plan and Alice doesn’t want to put Bob in charge of HR systems.
Bob is a little confused but shrugs and goes back to building a chicken coop.
This happens a few more times, and it’s taking up more and more of Alice’s time to review Bob’s proposals. She likes Bob’s ideas and wants to find ways to implement them, but doesn’t like Bob’s leadership style so doesn’t want to put him in a leadership position. A couple other people in the org do like Bob’s style, and are confused about why he isn’t put in charge of more projects.
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So the takeaway is something like: even if you are hiring an experienced person to a junior role, you are essentially hiring them to a senior role because they think like a senior hire. If their work and ideas are not given the space to thrive (which means basically treating them as senior staff), then it’ll likely be a source of tension.
It’s harder to carve out a senior-shaped-hole at an organization and higher stakes to hire someone with more seniority (which in my mind means autonomy over a budget and maybe a report or two). Organizations do this successfully all the time but it’s a much more significant effort than hiring a junior role.
Or put another way: the more agent-y the person you hire, the more you’ll need to be careful about principal-agent problems.
There is a bunch of nuance in here and various solutions, but I think it contributes to some hesitance around senior>junior transitions.
Thanks! I agree with the concern, but I think I disagree about the root cause:
She likes Bob’s ideas and wants to find ways to implement them, but doesn’t like Bob’s leadership style so doesn’t want to put him in a leadership position
In general, I’m skeptical about “putting” people in leadership positions, especially when their colleagues don’t want to be led by them.
If people aren’t listening to Bob because they don’t like his leadership style, then I would say that Bob is a bad culture fit (or, to be blunt, not a good leader). I wouldn’t describe this as the organization “not letting him thrive.”
I do agree that it’s harder to hire senior people though:
It’s … higher stakes to hire someone with more seniority
There’s a related thing you might be pointing to like “in a big organization, Bob can just come up with ideas and someone else will implement them, diminishing the costs of his abrasive leadership style. But in a smaller organization he has to both come up with ideas and execute, and maybe he’s not enough of a generalist for that.” I definitely agree with this concern.
If people aren’t listening to Bob because they don’t like his leadership style, then I would say that Bob is a bad culture fit (or, to be blunt, not a good leader). I wouldn’t describe this as the organization “not letting him thrive.”
I could also imagine it being that the org has a bad culture (e.g. they systematically don’t listen to the ideas of people in more junior roles)
Sure, but that’s also a reason against appropriately qualified people working there also, right?
What I’m pushing against is the assumption that employees love outsiders coming in and telling them all the things they are doing wrong, and if they don’t like you pointing out their mistakes it must mean you are “overqualified”.
I actually hear the opposite more frequently: having a more junior title makes it easier for people to listen to your suggestions, because it’s less threatening for you to point out mistakes.
Apparently my comment won a comment prize, which nudges me to carry on this conversation.
In general, I’m skeptical about “putting” people in leadership positions, especially when their colleagues don’t want to be led by them
What if Bob has an ambitious project he’s excited to run, and 4 out of 7 of his colleagues are excited by this project and want to be led by Bob on this, and Alice thinks it couldn’t hurt to try, but Alice’s cofounder Carol really doesn’t like the idea and 2 of the 3 board members also don’t like it? Carol et al. surface objections like ‘it’s not in the spirit of our mission’ and ‘I’m worried about the effects Bob’s leadership would have on our culture’.
Maybe if the org had good culture and good leaders they could figure out how to thread the needle, give Bob’s project a shot while addressing the concerns that Carol et al surfaced.
But I guess the point is… all of that takes time. A lot of effort needs to be put into the work of coordinating around a contentious project. In a world where Bob was vetted as a senior hire (which again, takes more time) he wouldn’t have made the cut because of these concerns. But since he was vetted as a junior hire, people didn’t think to consider ‘the effects of Bob’s leadership on our culture’.
To be clear, I think a good hiring processes would sufficiently address these problems at the beginning, either vetting Bob as a senior hire and/or ensuring he understood the scope of the role. A good hiring process would probably notice that Bob has the skills to fulfill the finance role, but does not have the skills to lead in the organization.
But… it’s hard to make good hiring processes, it’s hard to anticipate how this kind of thing will play out. In the face of this, I think it’s somewhat reasonable for hiring managers to lean towards junior hires in some cases. Like if I ’just want someone to get this one set of things done reliably for the next two years” I might have less headache with a junior hire that shows up, does the thing, and goes home.
If I hire an office manager and they start trying to reform my HR policies, this can be more of a headache than a help. I didn’t think to vet them for their HR policy skills, but now they are feeling bored and upset that I’m not giving more detailed feedback on their proposals. But I don’t have time right now. And then they leave the org because they feel unfulfilled, and we need to recruit for another office manager. Aagh! Let’s just hire a junior person!
Even if I was a bad manager above, I think it’s a pretty realistic situation and have the sense that a lot of orgs/managers have been burned like this, and so are more cautious about making senior hires.
To be clear, my all-things-considered view is pretty uncertain, and leans towards being willing to hire overqualified people (I also tend to be pretty bullish about hiring outside the standard EA demographic). Especially if you have decent management expertise, which would ensure e.g. good hiring processes.
Looking back at my comment, I’m still a fan of this model:
the more agent-y the person you hire, the more you’ll need to be careful about principal-agent problems
Something that feels maybe cruxy: Do overqualified hires have higher turnover? Higher management overhead?
Would you agree that, if Bob was more politically skilled, he would be a better fit for this position? (E.g. he would be better able to convince Carol to do this ambitious project.)
If so, then maybe you want to say that he is “overqualified in technical knowledge and underqualified in political ability” or something, but chalking the problem up to being “overqualified” across-the-board seems misleading.
If you are a junior employee then sure, it’s your managers responsibility to listen to your ideas. But as you become more senior, it becomes more of your responsibility to get buy-in. E.g.:
One of Steve’s direct reports told a story about a debate he had with Steve. Eventually, he backed down not because Steve had convinced him, but because he was afraid to keep arguing the point. When events proved that Steve had been wrong in his position, he stormed into his employee’s office and demanded, “Why did we do this??” When his employee pointed out that it had been Steve’s call, Steve exclaimed, “Well, it was your job to convince me I was wrong, and you failed!”—What Steve Jobs Taught Me About Debate in the Workplace
Would you agree that, if Bob was more politically skilled, he would be a better fit for this position?
Yes… and no?
Yes: it would be better re. ‘overhead required’. If Bob foresees Carol’s objections and takes her out to lunch and convinces her, this could save a bunch of management/board time.
… and no: maybe Carol’s concerns were legitimate and Bob was just very convincing, but not actually right. Fade to: Bob becomes CEO and the org is thriving but it’s not really following the original mission anymore.
I’m guessing Steve Jobs wanted people to convince him if (and only if) they were right. ‘Right’ meaning not just factually correct but probably also whatever Steve thought was good (whatever that was).
So maybe if Bob was more politically skilled and also aligned with the mission of the organization? But aw geez now we’re back to how it’s hard to hire people aligned with the org. Hmm, that would probably cruxy too. Not sure how to measure it.
Ah—maybe your post is making the point “if they would make a good senior hire, it seems fine to hire them in a junior position”. Maybe I was getting confused by the term, I’ve seen people labelled ‘overqualified’ when they are above average on a few dimensions but not all of them.
I’d have a harder time steel-manning a counterpoint to that. Maybe something about it not being stimulating enough so risking turnover… but that doesn’t hold much water in my mind.
This really matches my experience. As a high skill worker (software engineer at a FAANG), I strongly view top down proposals without team buy-in as a leadership failure.
If your idea is good, you should be able to convince the team that it is good and ought to be implemented (contributing to the implementation yourself is going to win you big favor points). Going over the team’s head to force the solution by forcing the HR team to accept the proposal in the example is going to burn bridges. Maybe it’s necessary if the proposal is incredibly important, but mandating a solution on a team after pushback should generally be viewed as an organizational failure to mourn.
Another point I’ve heard made a few times (and at-least-a-little agree with):
Let’s say Bob transitions from COO at a mid-sized org to finance manager at a small org. Bob has done finances before, and within a few months has set up some excellent systems. He now only needs to spend 10 hours a week on finances, and tells his manager (Alice) that he’s interested in taking on other projects.
Alice doesn’t currently have projects for Bob, but Alice and Bob saw this coming and set clear expectations that Bob would sometimes run out of things to do. Bob was fine with this, he’s happy to spend his extra time at home with the kids.
But also… Bob notices that their HR systems could use an upgrade. He writes up a plan and shares it at the next team meeting. Some people think this is a good idea, but the HR manager doesn’t want to implement the plan and Alice doesn’t want to put Bob in charge of HR systems.
Bob is a little confused but shrugs and goes back to building a chicken coop.
This happens a few more times, and it’s taking up more and more of Alice’s time to review Bob’s proposals. She likes Bob’s ideas and wants to find ways to implement them, but doesn’t like Bob’s leadership style so doesn’t want to put him in a leadership position. A couple other people in the org do like Bob’s style, and are confused about why he isn’t put in charge of more projects.
---
So the takeaway is something like: even if you are hiring an experienced person to a junior role, you are essentially hiring them to a senior role because they think like a senior hire. If their work and ideas are not given the space to thrive (which means basically treating them as senior staff), then it’ll likely be a source of tension.
It’s harder to carve out a senior-shaped-hole at an organization and higher stakes to hire someone with more seniority (which in my mind means autonomy over a budget and maybe a report or two). Organizations do this successfully all the time but it’s a much more significant effort than hiring a junior role.
Or put another way: the more agent-y the person you hire, the more you’ll need to be careful about principal-agent problems.
There is a bunch of nuance in here and various solutions, but I think it contributes to some hesitance around senior>junior transitions.
Thanks! I agree with the concern, but I think I disagree about the root cause:
In general, I’m skeptical about “putting” people in leadership positions, especially when their colleagues don’t want to be led by them.
If people aren’t listening to Bob because they don’t like his leadership style, then I would say that Bob is a bad culture fit (or, to be blunt, not a good leader). I wouldn’t describe this as the organization “not letting him thrive.”
I do agree that it’s harder to hire senior people though:
There’s a related thing you might be pointing to like “in a big organization, Bob can just come up with ideas and someone else will implement them, diminishing the costs of his abrasive leadership style. But in a smaller organization he has to both come up with ideas and execute, and maybe he’s not enough of a generalist for that.” I definitely agree with this concern.
I could also imagine it being that the org has a bad culture (e.g. they systematically don’t listen to the ideas of people in more junior roles)
Sure, but that’s also a reason against appropriately qualified people working there also, right?
What I’m pushing against is the assumption that employees love outsiders coming in and telling them all the things they are doing wrong, and if they don’t like you pointing out their mistakes it must mean you are “overqualified”.
I actually hear the opposite more frequently: having a more junior title makes it easier for people to listen to your suggestions, because it’s less threatening for you to point out mistakes.
Apparently my comment won a comment prize, which nudges me to carry on this conversation.
What if Bob has an ambitious project he’s excited to run, and 4 out of 7 of his colleagues are excited by this project and want to be led by Bob on this, and Alice thinks it couldn’t hurt to try, but Alice’s cofounder Carol really doesn’t like the idea and 2 of the 3 board members also don’t like it? Carol et al. surface objections like ‘it’s not in the spirit of our mission’ and ‘I’m worried about the effects Bob’s leadership would have on our culture’.
Maybe if the org had good culture and good leaders they could figure out how to thread the needle, give Bob’s project a shot while addressing the concerns that Carol et al surfaced.
But I guess the point is… all of that takes time. A lot of effort needs to be put into the work of coordinating around a contentious project. In a world where Bob was vetted as a senior hire (which again, takes more time) he wouldn’t have made the cut because of these concerns. But since he was vetted as a junior hire, people didn’t think to consider ‘the effects of Bob’s leadership on our culture’.
To be clear, I think a good hiring processes would sufficiently address these problems at the beginning, either vetting Bob as a senior hire and/or ensuring he understood the scope of the role. A good hiring process would probably notice that Bob has the skills to fulfill the finance role, but does not have the skills to lead in the organization.
But… it’s hard to make good hiring processes, it’s hard to anticipate how this kind of thing will play out. In the face of this, I think it’s somewhat reasonable for hiring managers to lean towards junior hires in some cases. Like if I ’just want someone to get this one set of things done reliably for the next two years” I might have less headache with a junior hire that shows up, does the thing, and goes home.
If I hire an office manager and they start trying to reform my HR policies, this can be more of a headache than a help. I didn’t think to vet them for their HR policy skills, but now they are feeling bored and upset that I’m not giving more detailed feedback on their proposals. But I don’t have time right now. And then they leave the org because they feel unfulfilled, and we need to recruit for another office manager. Aagh! Let’s just hire a junior person!
Even if I was a bad manager above, I think it’s a pretty realistic situation and have the sense that a lot of orgs/managers have been burned like this, and so are more cautious about making senior hires.
To be clear, my all-things-considered view is pretty uncertain, and leans towards being willing to hire overqualified people (I also tend to be pretty bullish about hiring outside the standard EA demographic). Especially if you have decent management expertise, which would ensure e.g. good hiring processes.
Looking back at my comment, I’m still a fan of this model:
Something that feels maybe cruxy: Do overqualified hires have higher turnover? Higher management overhead?
Congrats on the comment prize!
Would you agree that, if Bob was more politically skilled, he would be a better fit for this position? (E.g. he would be better able to convince Carol to do this ambitious project.)
If so, then maybe you want to say that he is “overqualified in technical knowledge and underqualified in political ability” or something, but chalking the problem up to being “overqualified” across-the-board seems misleading.
If you are a junior employee then sure, it’s your managers responsibility to listen to your ideas. But as you become more senior, it becomes more of your responsibility to get buy-in. E.g.:
Yes… and no?
Yes: it would be better re. ‘overhead required’. If Bob foresees Carol’s objections and takes her out to lunch and convinces her, this could save a bunch of management/board time.
… and no: maybe Carol’s concerns were legitimate and Bob was just very convincing, but not actually right. Fade to: Bob becomes CEO and the org is thriving but it’s not really following the original mission anymore.
I’m guessing Steve Jobs wanted people to convince him if (and only if) they were right. ‘Right’ meaning not just factually correct but probably also whatever Steve thought was good (whatever that was).
So maybe if Bob was more politically skilled and also aligned with the mission of the organization? But aw geez now we’re back to how it’s hard to hire people aligned with the org. Hmm, that would probably cruxy too. Not sure how to measure it.
Sure, those other things are also ways in which I would say that Bob is underqualified, not overqualified.
Ah—maybe your post is making the point “if they would make a good senior hire, it seems fine to hire them in a junior position”. Maybe I was getting confused by the term, I’ve seen people labelled ‘overqualified’ when they are above average on a few dimensions but not all of them.
I’d have a harder time steel-manning a counterpoint to that. Maybe something about it not being stimulating enough so risking turnover… but that doesn’t hold much water in my mind.
This really matches my experience. As a high skill worker (software engineer at a FAANG), I strongly view top down proposals without team buy-in as a leadership failure.
If your idea is good, you should be able to convince the team that it is good and ought to be implemented (contributing to the implementation yourself is going to win you big favor points). Going over the team’s head to force the solution by forcing the HR team to accept the proposal in the example is going to burn bridges. Maybe it’s necessary if the proposal is incredibly important, but mandating a solution on a team after pushback should generally be viewed as an organizational failure to mourn.
Found this a really clear explanation (and I liked the scenario, made it more concrete).