Thanks Ben. I like this answer, but I feel like every time I have seen people attempt to implement it they still end up facing a trade-off.
Consider moving someone from role r1 to role r2. I think you are saying that the person you choose for r2 should be the person you expect to be best at it, which will often be people who arenât particularly good at r1.
This seems fine, except that r2 might be more desirable than r1. So now a) the people who are good at r1 feel upset that someone who was objectively performing worse than them got a more desirable position, and b) they respond by trying to learn/âdemonstrate r2-related skills rather than the r1 stuff they are good at.
You might say something like âwe should try to make the r1 people happy with r1 so r2 isnât more desirableâ which I agree is good, but is really hard to do successfully.
An alternative solution is to include proficiency in r1 as part of the criteria for who gets position r2. This addresses (a) and (b) but results in r2 staff being less r2-skilled.
Iâm curious if you disagree with this being a trade-off?
I havenât had the opportunity to see this play out over multiple years/âcompanies, so Iâm not super well-informed yet, but I think I should have called out this part of my original comment more:
Not to mention various high-impact roles at companies that donât involve formal management at all.
If people think management is their only path to success then sure, youâll end up with everyone trying to be good at management. But if instead of starting from âwho fills the new manager roleâ you start from âhow can <person X> have the most impact on the companyââwith a menu of options/âarchetypes that lean on different skillsetsâthen youâre more likely to end up with people optimizing for the right thing, as best they know how.
Thanks Ben. I like this answer, but I feel like every time I have seen people attempt to implement it they still end up facing a trade-off.
Consider moving someone from role r1 to role r2. I think you are saying that the person you choose for r2 should be the person you expect to be best at it, which will often be people who arenât particularly good at r1.
This seems fine, except that r2 might be more desirable than r1. So now a) the people who are good at r1 feel upset that someone who was objectively performing worse than them got a more desirable position, and b) they respond by trying to learn/âdemonstrate r2-related skills rather than the r1 stuff they are good at.
You might say something like âwe should try to make the r1 people happy with r1 so r2 isnât more desirableâ which I agree is good, but is really hard to do successfully.
An alternative solution is to include proficiency in r1 as part of the criteria for who gets position r2. This addresses (a) and (b) but results in r2 staff being less r2-skilled.
Iâm curious if you disagree with this being a trade-off?
I havenât had the opportunity to see this play out over multiple years/âcompanies, so Iâm not super well-informed yet, but I think I should have called out this part of my original comment more:
If people think management is their only path to success then sure, youâll end up with everyone trying to be good at management. But if instead of starting from âwho fills the new manager roleâ you start from âhow can <person X> have the most impact on the companyââwith a menu of options/âarchetypes that lean on different skillsetsâthen youâre more likely to end up with people optimizing for the right thing, as best they know how.