December 9, 2014 at 8:14 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Managerial Moneyball
December 10, 2014 at 3:15 am
Surely redeploying one's management might be a little unrealistic? I think following the sage advice of Phil Factor and undertaking some dog training classes might be a better bet...
https://www.simple-talk.com/opinion/opinion-pieces/on-training-your-it-manager/
In general I have found managers helpful when they stay out of the way and sort out problems as required.
December 10, 2014 at 5:44 am
A good manager filters out the unwanted distractions going both ways through the food chain.
I may have a great idea but the Director shouldn't be distracted if the manager is aware that it not strategic or another project will trump it a little way down the line.
Also, I should not get to hear the comments compliments and gripes+ or the constant "is it ready yet!" or "when is the recovery going to occur" every 5 minutes. Yes I need to keep my immediate manager appraised. And Yes I need to be aware of the pressure.
December 10, 2014 at 6:41 am
I was manager of my IT department once. I tried to shelter my team from all the garbage that came down from above so that they could just work. But I was never happier than when they consolidated IT with another department under one manager that was not me. There was no drop in pay. I didn't have to go to anymore manager meetings and I got to do what I loved, programming.
December 10, 2014 at 6:44 am
My 2 cents:
The 2 general types of managers have some different issues to deal with:
Nontechnical managers - the challenge for them is to not be so out of the technical loop that they are irrelevant. The bad ones respond by throwing themselves into the middle and making a mess or letting the political "stuff" roll down hill. The good ones learn how to communicate with their team, earn the trust of the technical staff, and having done that, "take the bullet" for the team, so the team can focus on technical issues. They recognize their biggest contribution to the team is to keep the technical folks working on technical stuff.
Technical managers - the challenge for them is figuring out how much to insert/assert themselves into the technical portions. The bad ones become control freaks, not trusting their team. This stifles the team's own individual creativity. The good ones set standards and follow up, listens to new ideas, provides constructive criticism, stays current with technology, mentors the team AND recognizes the need to "take the bullet," to shield the team from the politics.
One other comment about the 30/70 manager ability split:
The issue I see is taking someone who is a focused, detail oriented person from being in charge of himself and making them a manager or team leader. That naturally focused orientation makes it difficult to both code AND manage other members of the team and their code at the same time. The solution is to recognize the person's strength and have that person focus on being a manager.
December 10, 2014 at 8:40 am
I'd say that I agree that there are people who are naturally better suited to being managers than others. I know I shouldn't be a manager. I think it would be interesting to collect metrics to help in the decision of who should and shouldn't be a manager, but I wouldn't want that to be the overriding factor.
Jack Corbett
Consultant - Straight Path Solutions
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December 10, 2014 at 9:27 am
Isn't Moneyball about using data to improve the odds of picking and using individual contributors? So, to that end, I could see a large company, lets pick Google for discussion, that they may be using data to work out whom are their best individual contributors. Now, they are large, so perhaps they could use data to work out the better managers. That would be interesting. Glad I'm out of the workforce in a few years!
The more you are prepared, the less you need it.
December 10, 2014 at 10:03 am
Thanks Steve and another excellent article.
My rant for the day is this; the poor, weak, or inept manager will continue in their current role and may even be promoted unless those who they manage or who they use to manage create metrics to evaluate their performance as a manager.
I have been privileged to work for excellent to very good managers for my career. I have supervised and managed projects supervising a rather large team from time to time and have felt I did okay but it was not my strong point. However, had things been different I would have been challenged.
Does a current employee take the time and have the courage to speak about the quality of their manager or is there some fear and trepidation in doing so? If one is bold, they say this is not a problem. If they are not so bold or are somewhat intimidated by their position or management then they remain silent. It is hard for many current employees to give accurate feedback about their management. They either will give none or will say without much enthusiasm "Hey, things are fine."
One simple thought is to give an exit interview if one is offered, and to be honest and to the point about things. Do not vent or spew out sour grapes with vengeance rather give the correct information that will potentially help the employer, the supervisor, and those who are supervised by them.
M.
Not all gray hairs are Dinosaurs!
December 10, 2014 at 2:51 pm
When we factor in our own desire to "progress" and "achieve", we see the issue with picking managers solely based on management skills. It creates a ceiling through which we cannot travel unless we have certain skills.
We all join the workforce with a desire to contribute at the highest level we can achieve, and be the most successful we can be. All too often that success is measured by money or acquisitions, rather than a meaningful metric related to our contributions. As managers are better rewarded, that leads to a temptation to follow the management path.
I think that picking people to be managers solely based on them having particular skills, rather than letting them grow into the role, isn't going to create the opportunities in the workplace we all look for.
There's also the one other contributing factor. Managers may have different objectives or emphasis. While some tend towards stability and predictability, there are schools of thought which focus on change and chaos as transformative to business. We may plan to cope change (documentation etc.), but how often do we seek it out?
December 12, 2014 at 1:12 am
I truly believe that people in a management position who are deemed "poor managers" need support and encouragement into a role that better suits them. That way the company will have a more performant workforce and the ex-"poor manager" should find themselves in a role that they are happier with.
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
December 12, 2014 at 1:46 pm
I remember when my former boss at the time told me that I was not ever going to be a manager simply because of my personality, not because of my extremely good performance on the team. From that day forward, I was going to prove to him and everyone else in the world that no, you cannot assume that not everyone cannot be a manager let a lone a good one. And when he left his position, I took over the team regardless and managed them well based on the methodologies of empowering rather than using my team to push me to the top.
On the topic of Moneyball, I worked for a company that followed those methodologies in both the team structure and product development (video games). The company went under only 4 months after I got hired. This is when I decided to retire from the game industry and move into database development. Up until that time, I viewed the c concept as a very hard one to implement and make successful.
However, the new company I work for does a lot of those tests to measure a employees personality, work ethic and everything else to sort of classify people into groups. From there, they are able to identify how different people work best and how they do the worse. Sort of like our employee stats for everyone to see in plain view.
In total transparency, the entire team knows each others strengths and weaknesses. Thus, you can better understand how to work with one another as well for management to suggest improvements through employee training.
The same applies to management, especially in our company. We did one for all non-managers, one for middle management and then one for executive management. We got everything out in the open about everyone and had great dialog with each others work ethics and personalities.
I know from my experience, many of our managers changed dramatically for the better after the analyzation of how they work. My co-workers also agreed in a postmortem of the analyzation months after.
So, using the concept to not weave (or trade like baseball players), but identify strengths and weaknesses can work if everyone is on board and everyone is willing to change for the better based on the results. Those that don't, well, it's going to be hard to push forward not being a team player.
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