Management antipatterns
=======================

This section briefly discusses some common negative patterns.

Sink or swim
------------

* "Trial by fire", let someone figure out themselves.  If they aren't
  worthy, they'll figure out and go on.
* Well, if given enough time they'll eventually figure it out.  It's
  not my job to hold someone's hand.

This selects for people who have sufficient other support networks.
See the next point for the outcome.


Rich get richer
---------------

* We want the best return of our investment, so we invest our time and
  energy into the people who seem to have the best chances of big
  success.
* Those who are already most successful get even more successful.

Existing power structures and anti-diversity patterns get even more
entrenched.


My group will mentor itself
---------------------------

* My undergraduate researchers will learn from my PhD students.
* My PhDs will learn from my postdocs.
* My postdocs are already independent.
* Great, I don't need to do anything!
* In reality, all of your workers are still learning and outside
  mentoring is needed.  They also need explicit mentoring in being
  mentors themselves.
* Section :doc:`level-n-plus-one` comments on this further.

Talk about science, not about tools
-----------------------------------

* Talking about the research results (pretty presentations), not about
  how you got them (using the tools well).  Yet in theory we are supposed
  to learn *how* to do that research here.
* Maybe people are supposed to learn about the tools in courses.
  Often, that doesn't happen as well as we'd like (courses are also
  too theoretical).