I am very tired of managers thinking they outsmart anyone with such tricks. I've heard other "tricks" too, like "intentional intimidation of subordinates", "being brutal in 1:1s and pretending to be a saint in public"[0], etc. They are often left unchallenged because no one feels equipped to handle the fallout, defensiveness, and retaliation that usually follow when a controlling personality is challenged. Not because they outsmart everyone.
The real "trick" is honesty, consistency, integrity, wisdom, and other golden virtues. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. At the very least, you'll live a life you can be proud of.
> The real "trick" is honesty, consistency, integrity, wisdom, and other golden virtues. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. At the very least, you'll live a life you can be proud of.
This describes the boss / owner at my very first real computer store job (sellin' office machines) way back when the local Radio Shack was still sellin' the Tandy TRS-80 to home users. He treated all us employees with the same respect he expected of us, and he recognized and rewarded hard work and good ideas, and it really showed in how we all treated customers as well, which of course led to lots of happy customers buyin' stuff, which led to lots of free "word of mouth" advertising, which led to lots of sales, which led to happy boss, which led to happy well-paid employees ... Everyone wins. Funny how important "the little things" can be sometimes.
He was also the only boss I've ever had tell me "The customer is always right ... unless they're wrong ... Then you send 'em straight to me." (Usually so he could tell 'em why they're wrong and then either make the sale, or tell 'em where else they can take their money to. :)
I do wonder if they think they are fooling anyone, or if they are just that shameless.
One repeating issue we have had with our managers is they will try to label missing features as bugs, to put the blame on the product team when they have sold something unfeasible to a customer.
Another one is that they pretend that the feature was decided on long ago, when it was only briefly discussed and then decided against.
The real "trick" is honesty, consistency, integrity, wisdom, and other golden virtues. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. At the very least, you'll live a life you can be proud of.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18001634