> Motivation is a hired trait. The only place where managers motivate people is in management books

Initial motivation is the hired trait. It’s very easy to demotivate people. The trick is to not do that.

Yeah this 100%.

One of my core philosophies as a manager is that by default I should get the fuck out of the way. From there, identify the biggest issues and solve them.

If you're successful hiring great people, I really don't understand the desire to micromanage them. Or do silly things that are demotivating, like 996 or trying to mislead them / market things / hide the bad stuff.

Treating people like adults is that One Neat Trick that influencer bloggers don't want you to know.

	▲	lovich 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> Treating people like adults is that One Neat Trick that influencer bloggers don't want you to know. In the companies below Big Tech in valuation at least, having been in the room with drunken executives speaking their real thoughts multiple times, I’ve found it’s because they don’t want to treat people like adults. They want serfs to order around because they have some cultural value around being “the boss” and you can’t be “the boss” if you aren’t telling people what to do. The more things you tell them to do, the more of a boss you are. It’s how you get executives crowing to you about all of these faang ideas like google’s 20% time back in the day, or engineers being able to vote with their feet and only attend meetings they found useful, but then have people on pips because they were consistently 30-60 seconds late to daily standups. It’s not the only failure mode by far, but having leadership like that seems like a cause for companies getting hard stuck below a billion in profit

▲

OhMeadhbh 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

we used to say "employees don't quit jobs, they quit managers." i was very happy at Amazon until they moved me under a sub-optimal manager. i quit less than a month later. that manager got promoted. this will tell you everything you need to know about working at Amazon.

maybe they were trying to get me to quit. maybe that area's director was incompetent. maybe both.

▲

tayo42 7 hours ago | parent [-]

Do managers ever get fired or fail? All of my worst managers seem to keep moving up the ladder from what I see on LinkedIn. I don't understand it.

	▲	evilduck 7 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		As a manager, yeah I’ve seen several of my peers wash out of the role for one reason or another. It happens. Usually it’s self selected though, disliking the inherent drama, having difficult to work with employees, moving up from engineering and realizing that was actually what they loved, etc. But a bad people manager who still manages resources and timelines and expectations isn’t necessarily bad for business. Promoting them up into a more strategic role that deals less with managing a larger group of individuals directly isn’t necessarily a bad move either.
	▲	wavemode 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Managers have to manage up and manage down. Lots of managers succeed in their careers by being good at managing up, despite being awful at managing down.

▲

al_borland 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

A bad manager can turn a great employee into a good one. It’s really hard to go back once that happens.

▲

tyre 11 hours ago | parent [-]

I'd go further: a bad manager can turn a great engineer into a very bad one. People look up to great people, and when the strongest performers are demotivated, that spreads.

Commonly in the cultures that end up this way, leadership blames / gaslights the ICs. It's toxic and honestly kind of heartbreaking.

▲

al_borland 11 hours ago | parent [-]

If they are very bad, the company can let them go. If they are simple good or fine, the company lost their great engineer, and now has a seat filler that they can’t justify firing.

	▲	tyre 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		For sure. At that point they have to fire them, even though it's the company / leadership's fault and hard to watch. Ultimately better for that engineer, as well, to move on.

▲

loire280 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I may not be using the same definition of "motivation" as the author, but understanding what motivates your people, putting the right mix of people together to work on the right problems, and knowing how and when to apply pressure to get people to do their best work are absolutely something managers can do to motivate their teams.

▲

vjvjvjvjghv 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

“ It’s very easy to demotivate people”

So true. And really hard to reverse

▲

cmrdporcupine 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yep people have all sorts of sources of motivations. One of the key ones is a sense of ownership. Many people join startups instead of BigCorp because they want voice and influence that they don't get in a larger company. I've seen so many founders, managers, leaders, etc kill that by not recognizing this fundamental fact.

Of course there's also the problem that you can find and hire people who are motivated people but there's absolutely no guarantee people are going to be motivated for your specific problem.

	▲	OhMeadhbh 12 hours ago \| parent [-]
		thank you. can i hire you to run one of my teams? i've been trying to explain this to my managers for half a decade.

▲

hahahahhaah 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Thw word hired is doing a lot of work.

Is motivation intrinsic to a person.

Or is it a person plus situation.

Ot is it person, situation and reason (reason given in interview)

I have been most motivated when there was an aha in the interview process. Or a "cooll!" feeling. For me usually about the end product over the tech stack. I like to work on things I like to use myself.

▲

tyre 11 hours ago | parent [-]

I think motivation is contextual. When I love the mission of the project I'm working on, I'll put everything into it. When I hit a prolonged wall of politics or poor leadership, I'm not going to operate at 100%.

There's a trifecta that works well:

1. The job is what the employee wants to be doing (IC, manager, FE/BE, end product or mission, whatever).

2. It's what the company needs. (Don't let a high performer do something that's Priority 10 just to keep them.)

3. It's what the employee is good at. (This includes areas of growth that they have aptitude for!)

People in those situations, in my experience, tend to thrive. It's great that you've recognized the kinds of products (ones you use) that give you that.

Something I don't think hiring managers do enough is convince applicants not to work there. Have a conversation to discover what the person wants. If it's not this role, that's totally fine! It's far better to help someone discover what they love than hire someone into something they won't.

	▲	OhMeadhbh 11 hours ago \| parent [-]
		i stopped reading and upvoted this comment right after you wrote "i think motivation is contextual." i cannot agree with you more.