« Just a bit of parentry... | Main | Oh crap... »

So we're going to take a look at one of the most common, and silliest concepts known in business: That technical competence and time in a position somehow magically translate to management skill. The equally silly corollary is that someone can somehow magically "grow" into a position with little or no formal training.

The only thing this kind of thinking is good at is the creation of failure. Oh, this is directed at people in charge, because they're the ones responsible for making bad managers.

Being a manager at almost any level is a lot harder than it looks. I mean, everyone can get an the relative difficulty of being a non-manager. You come in, you do a job, right? The job description is a pretty good indication of the level of difficulty and what kind. For example, being a janitor may not be the mental challenge that being a mathematician is, but on the other hand, it requires a lot more physical ability, emotional maturity, and a strong stomach. The point is, no matter what the job is, you can look at the title, or the description and have a pretty fair idea of what is involved in that job.

WIth one exception.

Being a manager is not so simple. First, you lose the one thing that non-managers have: control over your own destiny. If you're the person doing the work, then you've got pretty good control over your destiny. If you do the job really well, your career will do well. Screw it up continuously, and you're fired. Pretty simple, right? But when you're a manager, your job performance, and therefore your career is based on how the people you're in charge of do. So the way your boss decides how well you do is by looking at the work done by the people you're in charge of. They do well, so do you. They don't do well, you don't do well.

If that was the worst of it, being a manager would still be pretty easy. Just make sure your people do well. But it gets trickier. You have to worry about "soft" issues, like "morale" and "attitude", "employee satisfaction", and the like. If one person on your team has a death in the family, you need to not only know, but know how to help them deal with it in the best way for them, so they don't adversely affect everyone else on the team. If it sounds like you have to be somewhat involved with your subordinate's lives, well, yes, you do.

Oh, and you also have to keep an eye on their job performance, interpersonal relationships, coworker relationships both in and out of the workplace, keep an eye on the larger picture, and ensure that both your boss's and your employee's needs are met.

Yet somehow, if you have X years of experience, you're just supposed to magically know this? It's ridiculous to do this, yet I see it constantly. i've been on projects where they took someone with no management or leadership training, and put them in charge of a high - profile project, and wondered why it floundered. Well, maybe throwing a kitten in a shark tank isn't the best way to teach the kitten to swim?

Since I mentioned the word, let me clarify something. Leadership and Management may be interrelated, but they are not the same. You manage things, you lead people. I know that "Leadership" sounds awfully reactionary, and militaristic. Well, that tends to be because Leadership is a critical thing in the military. If you look at the recent Abu Ghraib debacle in Iraq, and read the Taguba report, a large chunk of the findings of fact all point to a breakdown in Leadership. If you're in charge, and you can't lead people, then you're doomed. It sounds terribly obvious, but having someone in charge who knows how to lead is a constant of any good team, regardless of size. Apple is a great example. Jobs leaves, and Sculley takes over. Well, Sculley's not much of a leader. But he does okay, although circumstances help him more than he'll ever know. He leaves and we start the death march of bad Apple CEOs. The company has no head. Steve Jobs returns, and BAM, the company is doing well. It may never have the market share it once did, but the company is leading the industry in innovation at almost every level.

Steve Jobs did not do this by himself, but he provided the one thing that Apple, or any company needs...a good leader. Someone who is not afraid to say "no", or "yes" for that matter. Someone who is willing to take a risk, then stand and take the arrows if something fails. (I'm speaking specifically about the Cube here. When it came time to admit it was a failure, who stood up there at the podium and said the words? Jobs. That's important, and a sign that he is one of the better leaders in the business community.) Jobs killed popular projects, such as Hypercard, and the Newton, and he created even better ones, like the iPod, the iMac, and the iTMS. but the most important thing he is, is in charge. There is no doubt about who is in charge of Apple. It's Steve.

Strong leadership, even if it's bad, is better than weak leadership. Even if the person in charge is really messing up, if they are in charge, it's an easy fix, far easier than if the problem is weak leadership. Weak leadership can hide as quite a few different problems, and you can spend a lot of time putting out the wrong fires.

People, not resources are the hardest, and most critical part of a manager's job. If you're thinking, "But people are resources, stop it. That's putting the people on your team at the same level as your network switch. You can get a new switch, but a team that works well together is priceless. You cannot lose with a good team, you cannot win with a bad one.

The critical thing here is that Management and Leadership is a learned skill. There are no true "Natural Born Leaders". That's charisma, and someone who's a moron with charisma is a charismatic moron, not a good manager. "Natural Born Leader" also translates to "leads by force of personality", and that's bad far more often than it's good. If you're going to put someone in charge, require them to take management and leadership classes before they're put in charge of anything. This isn't a one time deal either. Require continuing education on this. Yes, it's expensive, but it'll never be as expensive as putting someone who has a lot of experience, but no management skills in charge.

If you're about to be made a manager, pester your bosses relentlessly about management training prior to you starting in that position. If your only training is in what form to fill out for office furniture and a refresher in the company rules, you're screwed.

I could literally write for months about this, and others have, it's a popular field of literature. So I won't, it would be redundant. Just always remember, and please never forget...being a manager is a specialized skill, so considering what a bad manager will do to your company, isn't it worth it to create a good one?

Comments