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Ask HN: I have a prejudice that junior managers cannot take right decisions

6 points by googlycooly ↗ HN
Is my thought correct or wrong?

I'm a manager (3 Years exp in dealing with people) and I always think, to be able to take right decisions, you need to have a lot of real life experiences. Without that the decisions are simply based on gut feeling and intuitions which are likely to be wrong.

Due to this prejudice, I cannot trust anyone's words unless they prove their claims.

Am I going the wrong way? Are there any experienced managers who can help me with this dilemma?

9 comments

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asplake
If the alternative is you making every decision, well good luck with that.

Somehow you need to get from prejudice and mistrust to 1) the curiosity to find out what people are capable of, and 2) accepting responsibility for the scalability and sustainability of the decision-making process. These are challenges of organisational and personal development, closely related also to strategy deployment.

googlycooly
The problem is, whenever (But NOT Always) some junior comes up with some idea, in my mind it automatically translates to - "Naive idea that will not work, and there is no need to think about it".

Maybe I became like this because of my past experiences, whenever I let my juniors take decisions themselves, it had gone wrong. (And I always knew, I could have done it better).

So, I'm confused. Am I going the right way, or is there something fundamentally wrong with my prejudice? Is it because I'm with the wrong people? (Then another question, how do you know if you're with the wrong people?)

I believe only a experienced manager can clear my confusion.

asplake
Is your approach scalable, sustainable, resilient, etc? What happens when you can’t be there? What happens when you’re no longer there? If I were your manager (and I have been a manager of managers), I’d be concerned.
googlycooly
Don't you think this statement is true - "If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room".

That could be the reason. Maybe I'm trying to manage the wrong people? But cannot confirm, that's my dilemma.

How would evaluate if a person (be it junior or senior) is capable of making right decisions themselves?

throwaway29303
How is one supposed to gain experience as a manager if one isn't able to manage because one's lack of real life experience?
joshxyz
Peter principle sir, they're called juniors for a reason. You're right you can't trust their shit on face value, and that's where senior ones come in :)
emgo
Can you provide two examples of situations or conversations in which you found it hard to trust someone's words?

And if possible for each example, specify what made you mistrust them, and what would have made you trust them.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, do you have two examples of situations in which it was easy for you to trust someone's words? What made you trust them?

hazz99
> and I always think, to be able to take right decisions, you need to have a lot of real life experiences

As a “junior” person, I generally agree with this. But not prescriptively, more like a rule of thumb.

Age and life experience are not exactly connected. A younger person could have more life experience than an older one, depending on the intensity and selection of their past experiences.

So although I agree that life experience often helps you be a better manager, and junior people often have less, I don’t think that fact justifies a prejudice.