Here is a business case for you. You are a senior manager at a big-tech company. You have two individual contributors (IC) you are considering for promotion to manager. The first IC is a long term employee for the company and been there with you since you started the team. He already manages a group of contractors for you and holds down the fort when things get crazy. Team assumes him to be in charge in many cases, but he does not have a recent high impact project under his belt. The second IC is younger and worked as a contractor under the first IC. He was hired for his contribution few years back. He did a high impact project last year. He has good potential and already promoted as Sr. Engineer last year. If you promote first IC everything will align organically. Team will find it appropriate, he is already managing people, and most importantly he has been there for a while so he can leverage his network. If you promote the second IC, you will be rewarding for his outstanding contribution. However, he doesn’t have the soft influence over the team. He is remote, making it more complicated. Finally, he will now manage the first IC who used to manage him previously, making the relationship complicated between two leaders in your team. Who would you promote? Why? #management #promotion #tech
The first one because if you bypass him, he may leave and others too. The second one just got a promotion and needs to prove that he is management material. Give him a big bonus. That’s what they are for no?
Or offer it to the first person and see if he’s interested before selecting the second one.
Narration of your case is already skewed towards IC1
both - 1st promoted to ur position n 2nd to the new role described. n u shud get fired for asking such questions.
I don’t understand why is this even a question, of course the first one
2nd. He's young and ambitious. The 1st one has peaked and is doing a good job managing the team. By promoting the 2nd you will either push them out of the company or get a valuable, but unreliable, ally that will help you to leverage yourself as a manager. Promote based on impact, potential and growth speed, not based on loyalty. Never fails. Come on, this is a dog race. You bet on the top dog or the underdog. Never the middle. This is like management 101.
This explains everything the Salesforce people always said about the ex- Microsoft management people. Like... I totally get it now.
That's an unfortunate consequence on how people are measured and rewarded. If you want to really change the culture, you need to change the metrics. Satya has done lots of good things, but he didn't touch this. Not sure why he didn't. Maybe the problem is the board, that doesn't want to touch the Bill Gates Golden Rule? Maybe it's the head of HR? Truth that matters is that no one had the guts. But it's someone's fault and I can guarantee you it's not the managers' fault. We don't make the rules, we just enforce them.
Which one are you?
Not enough information to decide. You referred to both as "he" so, assuming you have not mis-gendered anyone, both are males and gender cannot be used as a distinguishing factor. However, you've neglected to specify the candidates' race/ethnicity. This should of course be the primary qualification in any woke corporation.
Good point. Race would be too specific.
Make this a poll
You are clearly the first one and are deeply biasing the question to your internal narrative. So the second one. Because you hold an inability to understand and present a nuanced view.
I agree with you on this. I am a bystander and didn’t have a say in this. This is how I saw it play out. I don’t know if there was anything else in play. For example, whether there was a possibility of loosing IC 2 to other company/team. Or if there was a position or salary increase the IC 1 was offered or not. Nonetheless, I wanted to learn, given these facts what would you do as the manager? As you pointed out the gaps, what information you would seek out so that the decision is fair?
1st every single time. 2nd is a douche. Who cares about high impact project. Generals fight wars not battles.