I certainly sympathize with the underlying sentiment, but this post seems to boil down to "managers should be better!" which... yes, definitely. But how?
If you're not going to to use metrics (agree that we are very limited by what can be measured), and not supposed use peer reviews (agree that they can be rife with bias), the only way to reasonably expect the median manager to know the ins and outs of everyone they manage is to have a small ratio of managers to team members. But that means more layers, and people hate that too!
Also let us not forget that the alternative presented ("It's the job of a manager to know what their reports are up to, and whether they're doing a good job of it, and are generally effective.") boils down to "does your manager think you're good" which is it's own giant can of worms.
"does your manager think you're good" which is it's own giant can of worms."
I have bad news. Unfortunately if your manager does not think you're good, literally nothing else you're going to do will matter, no matter what metrics say in either direction. If your manager does not think you're good, you should leave immediately unless you have some trump card in the form of a higher-up manager who does think you're good. It's the only exception (and barely an exception at that).
So, short of that universal caveat, what system is better? I've said this and I'll say it again: EMs should have unilateral power over their reports performance designations. They already basically do, and the delta wherein they don't is by far abused for evil more than it is for good. So just close the gap.
>"managers should be better!" which... yes, definitely. But how?
You fire the bad managers.
Well, the next question would be how do you find out if the managers are bad? One has to talk to peers, subordinates and superiors and do anonymous feedback, in addition to random checks. All that has to be done by the upper management. If the upper management is not doing it it can only mean either of these 2 things: 1)They are not interested 2) They are too incompetent to do it.
> One has to talk to peers, subordinates and superiors and do anonymous feedback, in addition to random checks
But the article claims you can't trust peer reviews, and that managers should just "know" what their reports (in this case line managers) are up to / how good they are...
It's combination of several things, one of them is _talking_ to peers, not some written account ( peer review? ) of what the peers say. This is has to be done by upper management only.
If you ran a company that you founded how would you judge a manager? You don't just sit on your ass and hope that someone will tell you about the new manager that was hired. You actively seek information, you grill people, you hold the them high standard of integrity.
Also worth repeating: If the upper management is not doing it it can only mean either of these 2 things: 1)They are not interested 2) They are too incompetent to do it.
My point is literally everything you suggested "upper" management do to evaluate managers are things the article suggests doesn't work when it comes to evaluating individual contributors.
If you're not going to to use metrics (agree that we are very limited by what can be measured), and not supposed use peer reviews (agree that they can be rife with bias), the only way to reasonably expect the median manager to know the ins and outs of everyone they manage is to have a small ratio of managers to team members. But that means more layers, and people hate that too!
Also let us not forget that the alternative presented ("It's the job of a manager to know what their reports are up to, and whether they're doing a good job of it, and are generally effective.") boils down to "does your manager think you're good" which is it's own giant can of worms.