alt Hacker NewsWhy do people espouse goals like “not to be needed?” I never understood that. It sounds like LinkedIn virtue signaling. It’s a capitalist talking point along the lines of “I seek to be good and inexpensive capital for my corporate masters.”
My goal is to help my team succeed in such a way as to keep my job or else get a better one. Being “not needed” hardly serves that goal.
Look around you. We are in a world that is turning away from middle managers. Don’t play into their hands.
Replies
The way I read it is not to be needed for normal functionality of the team, not to "not be needed" at all. Akin to a ship's captain - for the most part a ship works without a captain just fine, but that doesn't make the captain's job redundant, it's just he's needed for specific occasions, otherwise, he's just making sure the crew works as a well oiled machine.
Because it's a good heuristic for a functional and resilient team. People don't usually means it literally, more like "if I disappeared it should be pretty painless for the team to continue along for a month or so and to find and onboard a replacement".
“Don’t be needed” isn’t “don’t be valuable.” The EM should not be a bottleneck. The EM should be able to take a vacation without being paged. (So should anybody on the team!)
My teams would slow down without me because I can due process tasks more efficiently, but nothing demands me to be in the loop.
The goal should be to have teams who want you to be supporting them, not need you to be supporting them. Getting teams to the point where they don't need you isn't actually that hard. They might be only performing at 50% effectiveness, but that's fine if the work is getting done. You should build a relationship with the teams so they want you to support them to get to 90% or even more.
If your teams fail to function without your help then you're clearly not supporting them well enough, and you can't take a vacation or go off sick or be promoted. That is not optimal for anyone.
I think the points made at mostly for a front-line manager though, not so much for a middle manager.
cause it means: I lead them so good that I do nothing and still get my salary.
You’re taking it too literally, it’s not saying don’t be useful, it’s saying don’t make yourself a bottleneck. It’s a very common failure mode for new engineers turned manager, leading to a frustrated team that feels micro-managed and the perception from leadership that you don’t have your shit together and can’t adequately handle the scope you’ve been given.