I really appreciate Rands writing on management. In this piece I’m impressed that he takes responsibility in the general for not anticipating someone leaving and in the particular for blowing off a question that led to an individual’s departure. I’m impressed by it because it’d be so easy to place responsibility on the employees for not discussing the initial incidents even in the weekly 1:1s he strongly advocates for.

One big driver of this is power. The employee doesn’t want to say things that might make them look incompetent, weak, or unworthy to the person who evaluates them, even if their boss is the best person to address the issue. I’m reminded of a quote from Illuminatus!

But a man with a gun is told only that which people assume will not provoke him to pull the trigger. Since all authority and government are based on force, the master class, with its burden of omniscience, faces the servile class, with its burden of nescience, precisely as a highwayman faces his victim. Communication is possible only between equals.

It’s a great post. Useful to turn it upside down and ask those questions of yourself right now.

(Would be useful if there were a management/people tag, but culture will have to do.)

This is what I see practices used for most.