Absolutely!

This is a point that tends to kill introverted/insecure people I think. They assume that asking for permission is making things easier for people, but there's a limit where you're not allowing others to delegate responsibility onto you. Your job is for others to not have to think about the things you take care of.

huh, that's an interesting perspective. I've never thought of it that way. This framing could explain some of the bullshit I went through with a politicking manager and a less experienced leader.

Personally, I tend to assume accountability for things I lead, but as a manager, of course, I am also responsible and accountable for my team; including both things I signed off on and things I didn't (because I entrusted that independence to them.) It's an interesting line to walk.

You can only take responsibility if you also have ownership. Large organizations very quickly become like communist state, nobody own anything and any individual action is suspicious.

> This is great advice to become a pain in the ass that managers know they need to keep on a short leash.

Not really. The advice is prefixed with this context.

> When you have something you want to do and that you feel is in scope for your position, but you want a bit of reassurance or to let the boss know what you are up to

Basically it's saying if it's your job to make this decision, but it's something where the boss needs to know (or you need them to know because you need a small amount of reassurance), then asking for "yes" fails to communicate your understanding in that regard.

Asking for "yes" says it's the boss's job to make this decision - but we're talking about decisions where you believe it's your job make it.

Well a prerequisite is knowing what you’re doing. If you don’t, then yeah, don’t use this approach.

Huge disagree, as a manager. It depends on the thing, of course. If you're rushing into a giant re-architecture by Tuesday, that's dumb. If you have some change you want to make, go for it.

My default is to trust engineers based on my experience with and expectations for them. If they want input—anything from a deep review to a gut check—I'm happy to help. If you're looking for a gut check, this is a fine way to do it. It communicates your level of confidence, which is an important data point for me.

If someone is adding a GH action, do we need a prototype? Maybe! But also maybe not. Bias towards action. Not YOLOing, not hacked together crap, not vibe code merged without review. But I've found that great engineers are often more hamstrung by permission checks than the issues they're meant to prevent.

> This is great advice to become a pain in the ass that managers know they need to keep on a short leash.

If abused.

I've used this a few times for things that are in my remit, or very close to, that need doing or there will may well be more problems down the line for me or the local team more generally. If there isn't a particular problem with the intended action, I'm removing the need for someone else to make a proper positive decision. It is particularly useful when things are getting delayed by too many cooks trying to season the broth, or when it is going to require out-of-hours work and I want to push things towards a timeframe convenient for me.

Of course there are some large caveats:

* You need to be trusted, i.e. have a record of doing things both right and well, being appropriately careful with back-out plans and such, and if there have ever been mistakes on your part you need to have owned and rectified them quickly. It isn't going to fly if you are new or otherwise unknown, etc.

* You have to be complete but concise in the description of what you are doing, including what your “oh, fuck” roll-back plans are.

* You have to include everyone relevant in the announcement of your planned action, and send the notification at a time when they are likely to read it before you do the do. If there is someone key missing and others notice they will stop you, and if they don't notice and something goes wrong you have lost your trusted status for quite some time for being deceptive.

* Be prepared to be told no. Check just before the appointed time, and delay yourself a little and check again in case of a last minute “shit, no, don't do that” if someone spots a problem with the plan a little late.

* You need to trust the others around you to speak up if there is a problem, though getting negative decision can be a lot easier than getting a positive one so this isn't the most important part of this point. The most important part is you need to trust them to speak up and not enjoy watching you make a mess so they can hang you out later :)

Though having been taken over by a larger company this year, I don't think I'll ever do this again because the layers of bullshit are just too vast for it to be a safe tactic. Younger me might still have taken the chance, but I have a healthier level of not giving a shit these days - instead of “I'm doing X at time Y unless you say no” because “I really should do X at time Y otherwise problems A, B & C will arise” and if I don't get the go-ahead and problems do arise I'm the one enjoying schadenfreude⁰ and demanding overtime rates if they want me to work extra to deal with issues due to not doing the thing.

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[0] I know this is a slightly unhealthy attitude, and this is one of the reasons that I'm increasingly thinking that I need a significant career change¹.

[1] the main two reasons being not being happy working remote², it isn't good for my mental health, and not caring to engage with A-bleedin'-I, two massive things that increasingly mark me as not fitting in with the dev industry.

[2] I know I'm fairly unusual here and it seems to work better for many (most?) people, no need to take this as an insult to those of you gleefully working on remote teams or wanting to and jealous of those that can!

I'm going to cause an expensive outage that will ruin the company, and our careers unless you say no to sugar in the coffee!!!!

Completely inverse to my lived experience.

I have always used this method and my managers love me because they know I get important shit done without much supervision or needing dozens of planning meetings. It doesn’t even feel like there is any leash at all.

Of course the company i work at isn’t extremely disfunctional and a growing startup, so once we move into enterprise territory it might change the culture and it’s more about saving your ass and less about doing actual work.

> It's not new advice.

It will be new to someone.

https://xkcd.com/1053/

But even amongst those for whom it isn’t, sometimes a reminder of things you know is useful and may come at just the right time.

Incapable of saying yes or not authorized to approve?

If it didn't work sometimes (in other cases), we wouldn't call them sociopaths.