Managing High Performers

Managing high performers? Step one: pay them what they&#x27;re worth.<p>With the reliable incompetence of the average job, we shouldn&#x27;t ever expect this kind of rational fair compensation. Really, we should be seeing truly talented people making an exodus away from what is called a socially appropriate job. Due to there being a gross monopoly, right now, on economic resources (led by the dictatorship of midwits).

I managed a person who was more senior than I was, and definitely a top performer.<p>What did they want me to do?<p>Get stuff out of their way, so they could move as fast as they were capable of moving.<p>I was happy to do that, and we had a great relationship.

I&#x27;m convinced real coaching doesn&#x27;t exist. I don&#x27;t think I&#x27;ve ever had real coaching. I&#x27;ve even requested additional coaching as a medical accommodation. It&#x27;s just additional low quality feedback. There&#x27;s no focus on growth or improvement.<p>I have no doubt that I&#x27;m not living up to my potential. I don&#x27;t see any way to get there given my disability and lack of real coaching.

One thing that is not in the article is the fact that high performing people are often asked to do things that aren&#x27;t part of their job description and for which there is no time in their timetable.<p>As someone who is currently in that role I expect my managers to know where the limits lie and defend them against other higher ups, departments etc. And that means there should never be a long period of over-straining these resources.

The article assumes that managers of software high performers have the same quality as Tiger Wood&#x27;s coach. Nothing is further from the truth.<p>In general, I feel that the article is geared towards making the high performer work harder and ignoring his often legitimate complaints. It does not address the question <i>why</i> high performers sometimes get irritable. The reasons can range from people intriguing against them with lies to being underappreciated.<p>&quot;Cutting off the oxygen&quot; is a one-sided and primitive measure.

Theres generally no room for &quot;high performance&quot; in large corporations like Amazon and Google. There is room for getting work done quickly and to spec, but that&#x27;s different than high output creative problem solving. The value in many businesses is that they have compartmentalized employees into high output replaceable cogs. High performing employees outside of startups and &quot;innovation teams&quot; are a risk to a business

Actual high performers cannot be managed as they eventually will question why a less capable person is managing them.<p>This is the basic unsolvable quandary everyone ignored at Google during my 10 years there.<p>What these silly advice columns actually are selling is “how to drain over producers until you can discard them”

Some good advice here but contains (paraphrasing) &quot;Always ask them for more&quot;.<p>Why not help them find and keep balance? We get to be excellent because we care and want to do the work well. Always mindlessly pushing for more is advocating for burning out your best people. Yes we want to grow but sometimes we need rest and further, that rest and proper balance is key to getting the best results.

&quot;they just float around and help people&quot; heaven forbid

<i>Even the best performers need structure and guidance - a coach. Without coaching, high performers can meet all sorts of suboptimal fates…</i><p>Why don’t tech companies generally employ coaches? Yes you can get an “executive” coach, but not widely and really depends on the culture for the perceived purpose. Coaches aren’t widely available for helping people using (and not abusing) their brain’s gifts every day.

Understand what they value as an individual: compensation, work life balance or interesting work can all be valued by top talent and it often depends where they are in life.

I don&#x27;t need any managing I want the rest of the team to also be high performers and low performers go work in another team

The two important things a manager needs to do with high performers is simply make sure nothing stands in their way and make sure they are paid well.<p>My experience with high performers is they will ask for guidance when they need it. You don&#x27;t need to offer it to them.

Who’s managing these managers and management article writers is what I want to know

From my own experience as a high performer: don&#x27;t bullshit them, and be upfront when you are parroting required HR talking points.<p>Worse than anything else in TFA is insulting my intelligence, especially when it comes to career advancement. That&#x27;s why I left a job I&#x27;d been at for quite a long time. The company suddenly decided to gamble that I didn&#x27;t know the difference between inflation and core inflation.

But first, we have to argue about our own individual interpretations of what a &quot;high performer is&quot;, and then justify our belief that it is every single one of us, because-

Somehow these articles always come across to me as; managers are perfect and those who need to be managed are flawed.