I definitely agree that it's not inherently doomed to failure, but I'm not sure the OP from the post would benefit from an external manager.
Fundamentally, small companies that accomplish things tend to have relatively strong cultures, and external managers (by definition) are not necessarily part of that culture.
I've seen an external manager cause loads of issues because of this, even when they come in with the best of intentions.
In smaller companies, you are almost always much better off promoting internally for a number of reasons. Firstly, it demonstrates (assuming that you make the right person the manager) that there's a path for people on the team to progress. Secondly, they are already aware of the actual problems with the company, and (importantly) the kinds of solutions that are acceptable.
I currently work for a small, fast-growing company and our external manager decided to rebuild a core system at the weekends and push it to prod. Now, the system is actually pretty good (I dislike it stylistically, but i have niche tastes).
However, what this person didn't consider (because they were new) that the org was not going to give much (if any) time to move stuff over to this new system. As a result, we're about 50% of the way done 18 months in, and in the interim, we've had to not do a bunch of stuff that would actually improve our product.
Like, I remember (and HN hate this company so it's unlikely to be listened to) when FB started getting really successful (2013-15), we ended up hiring a lot of Google/Amazon managers and leaders externally and probably through negligence, they ended up destroying a bunch of what made the culture great.
Hiring bad managers is much, much worse than no managers, but if you promote an IC then they have a valid stepdown path if it doesn't work, which an external manager is less likely to have (or indeed, accept).
And thus concludes my Ted Talk about avoiding external managers.
Also, if one of the individual engineers on the team has a desire to try management, took the training courses, has the support of the team, and believes he'll get a shot next time a manager is needed... and then you announce "Well, we couldn't find anyone internal for the job, so meet your new manager: the stranger we hired externally!" I guarantee that engineer will become instantly demoralized, checked out, and will likely quit soon. Source: My experience in my last three jobs.
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I do not agree with your premise that hiring a manager from outside of an organization is inherently doomed to failure.
I definitely agree that it's not inherently doomed to failure, but I'm not sure the OP from the post would benefit from an external manager.
Fundamentally, small companies that accomplish things tend to have relatively strong cultures, and external managers (by definition) are not necessarily part of that culture.
I've seen an external manager cause loads of issues because of this, even when they come in with the best of intentions.
In smaller companies, you are almost always much better off promoting internally for a number of reasons. Firstly, it demonstrates (assuming that you make the right person the manager) that there's a path for people on the team to progress. Secondly, they are already aware of the actual problems with the company, and (importantly) the kinds of solutions that are acceptable.
I currently work for a small, fast-growing company and our external manager decided to rebuild a core system at the weekends and push it to prod. Now, the system is actually pretty good (I dislike it stylistically, but i have niche tastes).
However, what this person didn't consider (because they were new) that the org was not going to give much (if any) time to move stuff over to this new system. As a result, we're about 50% of the way done 18 months in, and in the interim, we've had to not do a bunch of stuff that would actually improve our product.
Like, I remember (and HN hate this company so it's unlikely to be listened to) when FB started getting really successful (2013-15), we ended up hiring a lot of Google/Amazon managers and leaders externally and probably through negligence, they ended up destroying a bunch of what made the culture great.
Hiring bad managers is much, much worse than no managers, but if you promote an IC then they have a valid stepdown path if it doesn't work, which an external manager is less likely to have (or indeed, accept).
And thus concludes my Ted Talk about avoiding external managers.
Also, if one of the individual engineers on the team has a desire to try management, took the training courses, has the support of the team, and believes he'll get a shot next time a manager is needed... and then you announce "Well, we couldn't find anyone internal for the job, so meet your new manager: the stranger we hired externally!" I guarantee that engineer will become instantly demoralized, checked out, and will likely quit soon. Source: My experience in my last three jobs.
This was a pretty good Ted Talk!