July 30, 2012 at 9:39 am
Steve said in the article - "If you can't train great managers, can you at least train them to not be bad ones? "
And for the first time in quite a long time I have to disagree. There are some that no matter what training, retraining, experience, or other effort will never be good managers. Some would take a complete personality transplant and others would require a sovereign move of God himself to make it happen.
Some clearly are not now, have never been, and will never be good management material. Some are born to follow!
M.
Not all gray hairs are Dinosaurs!
July 30, 2012 at 9:40 am
Greetings,
Needless to say, I have had my share of bad bosses - several of them. With all bosses I always tried to carry out the mantra taught to me by my dad. To work hard for the company you are at and to never give up no matter how hard it is. To work at a company with full loyalty.
In the past, that was definitely true. Those that worked hard and didn't leave would eventually receive the benefits for their loyalty. Now it seems a lot of employees jump ship when something that looks better floats by. That makes a manager's job a bit tougher when an employee can up and leave at any time. Anyhow, for the bad bosses I had, maybe they needed those types of employees. Maybe then they would realize that their behavior and treatment was causing more harm than good. I still try to give all I can to my current boss but I can also say the bad bosses will change a person's attitude for their work ethic and business relationship.
I could regale the stories of "Just how bad was your boss?" for you, but is that what this thread is really about? A bad boss can wreck a good employee.
Thank you for your time.
Terry Steadman
July 30, 2012 at 9:48 am
I don't know enough about the laws work to comment, so I can only go from personal experience. I have seen, and experienced being shuffled around, given the worst assignments and generally had huge hints dropped about not being welcomed. Some things seem so blatant, that I can't believe people aren't escorted from the building immediately. EX: The manager who had employees in his office, playing poker, for money. A new director came in soon after that event and whenever there was a situation in the manager's area, the director shadowed him, watching his every move and working directly with him. He got the idea and left.
That same director gave me good reviews on my work, but constantly gave me trouble about my attitude. This included my lack of enthusiam for the "corporate culture" and my complaints about people sitting on the phone, listening to the radio etc. I also left, and since then the company has reduced a lot of staff and actually cut back on its volume of business. It is a subsidiary, so I can't explain why the parent company made that decision, but I can see that they had a plan to save money by getting people to quit rather than "let them go."
I don't know how the law works, but my guess is, if you say to someone, "we don't like you and/or our income is reducing, we want you to quit", they have the right to leave and collect unemployment insurance.
July 30, 2012 at 10:19 am
Miles Neale (7/30/2012)
Steve said in the article - "If you can't train great managers, can you at least train them to not be bad ones? "And for the first time in quite a long time I have to disagree. There are some that no matter what training, retraining, experience, or other effort will never be good managers. Some would take a complete personality transplant and others would require a sovereign move of God himself to make it happen.
Some clearly are not now, have never been, and will never be good management material. Some are born to follow!
M.
Perhaps, but are those edge cases, or do you think a significant proportion of people can be trained to not be bad managers? I think there are definitely some ill suited, but I think a manager that just was taught to leave you alone unless there were problems is something most people could learn.
I don't want to dwell on edge cases since that's in the 20% of problems. I'm looking for an 80% solution, which is what I think training to get people to not be bad managers is.
July 30, 2012 at 10:21 am
djackson 22568 (7/30/2012)
In the US? Because trial lawyers own democrats, unions own democrats, and both groups enjoy the power they have as a result of pretending to protect workers. Someone fired you, let's sue them. Is your job too difficult because you have to work for 5 minutes out of every hour, let's threaten the company you work for, and every other company, until they cave. Don't like that you have to work for a living? Vote for me and I will tax those evil rich people, the ones that pay 80% of taxes anyhow, because it isn't fair that you aren't given everything for free so you can lay around the house watching daytime television and smoking crack, drinking your favorite drink, or whatever it is you do with meth.Why don't companies want to fire people? Because doing so invites the wrath of so many stupid groups of people that it is actually cheaper to just ignore the poor workers and hope they leave on their own.
Except that I do see people fired, rarely, for the same reasons and situations that others are not fired for. And the same threats, which quite often are not followed through upon. So I think you have some valid points, but they're overblown, and the more people just accept them, the more they become urban legend, not reality.
July 30, 2012 at 10:23 am
Matt Miller (#4) (7/30/2012)
While Djackson certainly has a different viewpoint on the matter, in lot of cases I saw it came down to some form of loyalty. People getting promoted into positions they cannot handle. Anything from good techs turned into poor team leads, to folks making to large of a jump and into areas they juts can't deal with. These USED to be folks that were useful, or provided value in the past: trying to pull them out might make them quit, and some of the folks who actually care feel stuck with this poorp mgr on their hands - so you find a way to isolate them. Easiest way is often to give them a loftier title and fewer folks to deal with.
Not the best move for the organization, but less painful than the "other conversation".
I think there's some validity here. Not just loyalty, but perhaps more that our humanity leads us to try and give people second (and third and fourth) chances. Or that we don't want a poor decision to reflect on us, so we move the person around or limit the issues.
July 30, 2012 at 10:27 am
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (7/30/2012)
djackson 22568 (7/30/2012)
In the US? Because trial lawyers own democrats, unions own democrats, and both groups enjoy the power they have as a result of pretending to protect workers. Someone fired you, let's sue them. Is your job too difficult because you have to work for 5 minutes out of every hour, let's threaten the company you work for, and every other company, until they cave. Don't like that you have to work for a living? Vote for me and I will tax those evil rich people, the ones that pay 80% of taxes anyhow, because it isn't fair that you aren't given everything for free so you can lay around the house watching daytime television and smoking crack, drinking your favorite drink, or whatever it is you do with meth.Why don't companies want to fire people? Because doing so invites the wrath of so many stupid groups of people that it is actually cheaper to just ignore the poor workers and hope they leave on their own.
Except that I do see people fired, rarely, for the same reasons and situations that others are not fired for. And the same threats, which quite often are not followed through upon. So I think you have some valid points, but they're overblown, and the more people just accept them, the more they become urban legend, not reality.
Maybe so, and if you are correct that would be a bad thing. I know of a lot of companies that won't fire people though, and specifically mention fear of lawsuits. We all know how hard it is to fire a union member, although hopefully that is changing, at least in the public sector. A clear example of not firing people even though everyone knows they are incompetent is teachers. We grant them tenure as soon as 2 years after hire, and wonder why they don't feel the need to do well at their job. I can't blame management when their hands are tied by things like that.
I do agree there are a lot of bad managers. There are also bad employees. Fixing either or both is a huge challenege, and I don't know if it can be. Improve, yes, fix, not sure.
Dave
July 30, 2012 at 10:33 am
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (7/30/2012)
Miles Neale (7/30/2012)
Steve said in the article - "If you can't train great managers, can you at least train them to not be bad ones? "And for the first time in quite a long time I have to disagree. There are some that no matter what training, retraining, experience, or other effort will never be good managers. Some would take a complete personality transplant and others would require a sovereign move of God himself to make it happen.
Some clearly are not now, have never been, and will never be good management material. Some are born to follow!
M.
Perhaps, but are those edge cases, or do you think a significant proportion of people can be trained to not be bad managers? I think there are definitely some ill suited, but I think a manager that just was taught to leave you alone unless there were problems is something most people could learn.
I don't want to dwell on edge cases since that's in the 20% of problems. I'm looking for an 80% solution, which is what I think training to get people to not be bad managers is.
I've had 7 managers in the past 8 years. 2 were good. Of the 6 that were bad, they needed major personality overhauls in order to be even tolerable.
July 30, 2012 at 10:43 am
Steve - I would agree with the 80% or more being able to manage or be trained to be average or good managers, and that the edge or the number of exceptions to the rule is small. This is indeed true for those who have earned the position by doing the work and working with others. We do see challenges when people are related to the boss or reassigned from another area in the company that is not related specifically to the current line of work and their pride will not let them leave it alone.
But for the most part I can agree with the 80%.
M.
Not all gray hairs are Dinosaurs!
July 30, 2012 at 10:54 am
djackson 22568 (7/30/2012)
I do agree there are a lot of bad managers. There are also bad employees. Fixing either or both is a huge challenge, and I don't know if it can be. Improve, yes, fix, not sure.
Huge might be an understatement. But it only starts by making an effort. I'd settle for a little improvement in a few places.
July 30, 2012 at 11:19 am
Core6430 (7/30/2012)
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (7/30/2012)
Miles Neale (7/30/2012)
Steve said in the article - "If you can't train great managers, can you at least train them to not be bad ones? "And for the first time in quite a long time I have to disagree. There are some that no matter what training, retraining, experience, or other effort will never be good managers. Some would take a complete personality transplant and others would require a sovereign move of God himself to make it happen.
Some clearly are not now, have never been, and will never be good management material. Some are born to follow!
M.
Perhaps, but are those edge cases, or do you think a significant proportion of people can be trained to not be bad managers? I think there are definitely some ill suited, but I think a manager that just was taught to leave you alone unless there were problems is something most people could learn.
I don't want to dwell on edge cases since that's in the 20% of problems. I'm looking for an 80% solution, which is what I think training to get people to not be bad managers is.
I've had 7 managers in the past 8 years. 2 were good. Of the 6 that were bad, they needed major personality overhauls in order to be even tolerable.
Ummm, 2 were good, 6 were bad, out of 7? 😉
July 30, 2012 at 11:20 am
I was one of those horrible supervisors. Twenty years ago out of college, I was a manager of a Domino's Pizza and I was horrible to my employees. Why? I was taught how to run a store, but I wasn't taught how to manage my staff and the franchisee I worked at didn't know how to show me a way that suited me. He wanted me to be like him, but it wasn't me. I was an angry mean manager who mamaged through fear and anger.
But I changed and, IMO, changed dramatically. I knew I had to change. I took classes on supervision, read books on supervision/management and really worked on changing who I was when I managed people and who I was as an employee and person.. My supervisors told me I had changed. I apply my management skills even as a non manager in my current job.
One of the best management books I've read is Love Works by Joel Manby. It's available through Amazon. It takes the values for love as stated in 1 Corinthians 13 in the Bible and show how they can work in the business field. It is not a religious book. It helped me to see that managing people can be done with the principles of love - patient, kind, trusting, unselfish, truthful, forgiving, and dedicated.
July 30, 2012 at 11:22 am
cksid (7/30/2012)
One of the best management books I've read is Love Works by Joel Manby. It's available through Amazon. It takes the values for love as stated in 1 Corinthians 13 in the Bible and show how they can work in the business field. It is not a religious book. It helped me to see that managing people can be done with the principles of love - patient, kind, trusting, unselfish, truthful, forgiving, and dedicated.
Thanks, will check it out.
July 30, 2012 at 11:26 am
SGT_squeequal (7/30/2012)
Having managed teams of variouse types for over 10 years I feel that to be a manager you but need to follow a few simple rules.Never expect anyone do do something that you would never be prepared to do yourself
and
Lead by example
Set a good example in the workforce and get a good result, set a bad example and you get a shit and unhappy workforce. I have seen too many bad managers who follow the rule; do as i say not as i do.
remember 1 person can not let a team down however, a team can let one person down 🙂 :w00t:
A happy worker is a good worker an unhappy worker will just leave 🙂
I agree. I have seen plenty (ok just 3 come to mind) of managers that would rather not lead by example and are just worthless.
Another thing these bosses tend to have in common (bad bosses) is that they probably should not be bosses in the IT field since they don't have a very good understanding of it.
Jason...AKA CirqueDeSQLeil
_______________________________________________
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July 30, 2012 at 11:58 am
SQLRNNR (7/30/2012)
SGT_squeequal (7/30/2012)
Having managed teams of variouse types for over 10 years I feel that to be a manager you but need to follow a few simple rules.Never expect anyone do do something that you would never be prepared to do yourself
and
Lead by example
Set a good example in the workforce and get a good result, set a bad example and you get a shit and unhappy workforce. I have seen too many bad managers who follow the rule; do as i say not as i do.
remember 1 person can not let a team down however, a team can let one person down 🙂 :w00t:
A happy worker is a good worker an unhappy worker will just leave 🙂
I agree. I have seen plenty (ok just 3 come to mind) of managers that would rather not lead by example and are just worthless.
Another thing these bosses tend to have in common (bad bosses) is that they probably should not be bosses in the IT field since they don't have a very good understanding of it.
Like the supervisor I had years ago who thought he'd save money buying refurbished 9-track magnetic tapes that would be used for holding critical database backups? I can't (don't want to) remember how of those tapes didn't have BOT and/or EOT markers, or really weren't refurbished.
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