>) Managers are simply not used to negative feedback because they never get it. People will lie to them rather than risk their careers on delivery of bad news.
This may be true for some managers, but I disagree that this is true generally for managers. Most managers (product managers in particular) here negative feedback all the time, from their bosses, their customers, marketing, sales, and other internal stakeholders.
I think one confusion here is that engineers occasionally provide feedback that a feature is a bad idea, even though they may not have the context to evaluate the idea effectively. This is frustrating for a manager, but also speaks the need for a manager to effectively convey that context. In fact, most engineers when provided that context are easily persuaded.
It is only the ones who seem to reject every idea, even when given compelling reasons why the ideas are good, that one begins to suspect may have an attitude problem and not be providing legitimate feedback.
This may be true for some managers, but I disagree that this is true generally for managers. Most managers (product managers in particular) here negative feedback all the time, from their bosses, their customers, marketing, sales, and other internal stakeholders.
I think one confusion here is that engineers occasionally provide feedback that a feature is a bad idea, even though they may not have the context to evaluate the idea effectively. This is frustrating for a manager, but also speaks the need for a manager to effectively convey that context. In fact, most engineers when provided that context are easily persuaded.
It is only the ones who seem to reject every idea, even when given compelling reasons why the ideas are good, that one begins to suspect may have an attitude problem and not be providing legitimate feedback.