Comment by _heimdall
2 years ago
This us an incentives problem, plain and simple. Its extremely difficult to quantify things that don't happen, and because we've been building our economies and societies around a heavy focus on quantitative metrics we end up only incentivizing people to solve problems. Even create problems on purpose if you need to, you'll get credit for fixing them.
Human Resources departments often run into this exact scenario. Many of the tasks that fall into HR are hard or impossible to quantify, and if done well they're also solving problems before they manifest.
I wonder if this is why some managers seem to go out of their way to generate chaos. I have no patience for it, and judge them harshly for it. They don’t get any credit if my book for “solving” problems they pulled out of their back side or willfully ignored planning for.
I'm sure there are some that do this.
I once worked with a test manager that was effectively judged by how many bugs were found and how many tests were written. He was actually a nice guy just trying to play the game given to him, but if you didn't know this you would think he was doing exactly as you described.
There will always be a few bad eggs in the mix, but I'd check the incentives forced on them before judging too harshly.
The ones I’m dealing with now aren’t very transparent about these things. I’ve tried fishing a little to see what’s behind it, but need to tread lightly to avoid getting yelled at for an hour.