False dichotomy. Asking to change teams is being complacent and making it someone else's problem. "escalating the battle at every opportunity" isn't an accurate summary of OPs actions.
So? Not every battle needs to be your battle--especially those where common sense says you're going to lose. You're under no obligation to try to work things out at a given job.
Is the problem that the company you’re working for has bad managers? Is your goal to ensure that there are absolutely no bad managers in a company the size of Spotify? Because that sounds like a Sisyphean task on a good day.
If that isn’t the goal then why is switching managers not a perfectly adequate solution?
And about making it someone else’s problem, potentially that person may get on better with the manager and they may both be more effective. Alternatively, when there is a second person who also chooses to change, that would lead to either the manager reconsidering their approach or the manager’s manager wondering why no one sticks under them.
If the company has a decent HR policy they will allow for anonymous feedback on the manager and when it gets similar feedback from multiple people they can work on improving the managers training and/or get rid of them.
No, obviously not.
> Is your goal to ensure that there are absolutely no bad managers in a company the size of Spotify?
No, obviously not.
I believe the OPs goal was improve a specific failing manager. I think he didn't do this very well, but let's not straw man him.
Employees have 0 responsibility or incentive to improve their managers (the converse is not true). In fact, it’s a terrible idea to do so, because there’s probably only single digit % of managers who would take that positively, if even.
Especially if it isn’t the manager taking the initiative to ask for improvement ideas.
It isn't? Whoever inherits the role will have the same issues, so how isn't swapping teams punting the issue to someone else?
> Employees have 0 responsibility or incentive to improve their managers (the converse is not true).
Employees have a responsibility to make sure their job gets done, and can (and should) identify obstructions to that happening.
> there’s probably only single digit % of managers who would take that positively, if even.
'Managing up' is a well-known and fairly common skill at large companies.
Sort of, but the person whose problem it becomes is the person who can and should deal with it.
A manager’s manager should notice if the manager’s team has a bunch of attrition. Certainly the best path is to work with your manager but if your manager is not amenable to that then changing teams is a signal to the rest of the org that the manager has issues.
He could have tried to talk with the managers manager, talked with HR, or done anything except behaving as a passive aggressive child...
It always was someone else's problem. If your manager wants the benefit of your insight and perspective, it is their responsibility to create a team culture which enables you to share it.
If you want to change something, you have to demonstrate that you’re acting in good faith and trying to work with the system rather than against it. Asking to change teams is working with the system. Getting into personal fights with your manager and escalating the battle at every opportunity is working against it.
People who work with the system and behave professionally are going to improve the overall health of a company. People who escalate every battle and want to fight every conflict until one party loses (in this case this backfired on the OP and they became the loser) generally only make the system worse.
The thing to keep in mind is that the company doesn’t have to choose which person is “right”. A manager and employee blowing up conflicts can both be wrong and can both be removed.