I love the optimism that senior leadership is just in the dark and wouldn't agree with a high percentage of the bad dynamics. With the benefit of hindsight the causal link to attrition is highlighted. In the moment, how many concerns would have been brushed aside as nerds getting carried away with nerd priorities instead of business priorities?
I appreciate the attempt to explain in executive speak that engineers may not be fungible, that they can be costly to replace, that the organization will suffer if attrition gets out of hand, and that their decisions can influence these outcomes. I don’t think it quite hits the mark for organizations where this is a problem, because I think bad executives play a fundamentally different game. I’m not quite sure what it is, but the success of the company doesn’t seem to influence their decision making. Maybe it’s just that confidence in their ability to fail up makes success irrelevant?
The author puts it in the only language the manager types might understand: Money.
However, we all know facts alone will not fix it. And then those who want to disagree will split hairs. Anyhow, it's good to see this stuff documented.
Product Managers? I've seen them brushing off concerns so that it doesn't even reach to senior leadership. I've once had an entire team coming to a CTO for a very serious meeting (TM), and the surprise was the CTO assuming the team was overloaded, while the team claiming there were not tasks. The PM basically lied to save her butt.
Engineering Managers? Those tend to be more transparent, as long as they are actually technical.
