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Unfortunately true it sucks good talent from the trenches and often puts them out of their depth. Refer to Item 1 or 1a.
Aww that's just plain silly ... 1 or 1a or maybe 5 would hire this genus of manager... Management principles are transferrable and can be taught but you are correct in the assertion that nothing drives the nail home like experience. Especially with regards to corporate culture (refer to 2)
Otherwise depending on where you are in the food chain you will be unable to be tactical or strategize.
the belief that there is some panacea for success is endemic.
As many trying to sell one as desperately searching for it.....
As many trying to sell one as desperately searching for it.....
Is "good management" the same as having a successful office/department/company/whatever it is you're managing?
Are, say, MS successes ascribable to the whatever brand of poor management you claim Bill Gates performed? Or is it in spite of it, and due to other things, such as good timing, aggressive business decisions, good luck, good press, whatever?
In my view, management is handling people doing work. It is not the only parameter to ensure success, in fact, it doesn't even come close.
Thinking further on this; there's two things a business section wants to do:
1) Be successful.
2) Not be unsuccessful.
1 does not follow from 2, nor vice versa. It is very possible to be successful and unsuccessful at the same time. Just like it is possible to be both smart and dumb at the same time: Imagine a genius inventor who cannot implement his brilliant ideas, because he lacks the right kinds of smart for that.
Good management is the equivalent of "not being stupid".
Good management is not the equivalent of "being clever".
Being clever and stupid at the same time isn't very optimal.
Not being clever, but being very much not stupid is pretty ok, there's room for that in most markets. Imagine companies which have an "merely ok" product, but their logistics and reliability is rock solid. There's room for that, you all know there is.
Being very clever, but being specifically stupid too...that's more iffy. A great product but poor delivery reliability? Know any companies like that? Sure, they exist, but they're not living up to their potential. Usually they get bought out.
Are, say, MS successes ascribable to the whatever brand of poor management you claim Bill Gates performed? Or is it in spite of it, and due to other things, such as good timing, aggressive business decisions, good luck, good press, whatever?
In my view, management is handling people doing work. It is not the only parameter to ensure success, in fact, it doesn't even come close.
Thinking further on this; there's two things a business section wants to do:
1) Be successful.
2) Not be unsuccessful.
1 does not follow from 2, nor vice versa. It is very possible to be successful and unsuccessful at the same time. Just like it is possible to be both smart and dumb at the same time: Imagine a genius inventor who cannot implement his brilliant ideas, because he lacks the right kinds of smart for that.
Good management is the equivalent of "not being stupid".
Good management is not the equivalent of "being clever".
Being clever and stupid at the same time isn't very optimal.
Not being clever, but being very much not stupid is pretty ok, there's room for that in most markets. Imagine companies which have an "merely ok" product, but their logistics and reliability is rock solid. There's room for that, you all know there is.
Being very clever, but being specifically stupid too...that's more iffy. A great product but poor delivery reliability? Know any companies like that? Sure, they exist, but they're not living up to their potential. Usually they get bought out.
You left out at least one myth: That a good manager can manage anything. Actually, some personalities are better at managing some kinds of businesses. The managers that rise to the top in one business have the right personality for that business. If they switch businesses, they may or may not be sucessful. This is proven over and over again when large corporations try to get into new business areas. More often than not they fail. Example: TI an excellent engineering compnay tried to get into the watch business. Seems like the management thought people wanted to know the precise time. Really, the watch business is a subset of the jewelry business. TI got creamed, with their marvelous time-telling gadgets that had no 'fashion appeal".
Yup, a big myth, much promoted and only believed by management theorists. At the very least the manager must understand the dynamics of the business, including production peculiarities and market foibles. And you don't learn this quick and easy.
"There???s a bell curve for all things involving people. It???s reality; it can never and will never change. Deal with it."
Ummm... "Deal with it" is an interesting choice of words. When a manager turns out to be a total toad, one way to "deal with it" is to replace the manager with someone more competent. "Deal with it" usually has the connotation that the underlings must kowtow because that's the status quo. But like any job, if you are not willing or capable of doing what's required, there are probably several more just like you standing outside the door trying to get in, who can and will do the job.
Ummm... "Deal with it" is an interesting choice of words. When a manager turns out to be a total toad, one way to "deal with it" is to replace the manager with someone more competent. "Deal with it" usually has the connotation that the underlings must kowtow because that's the status quo. But like any job, if you are not willing or capable of doing what's required, there are probably several more just like you standing outside the door trying to get in, who can and will do the job.
Bad managers cost companies lots of money. They cost companies by allocating resources poorly. They cause good people to go elsewhere causing the company to incur costs for the finding, hiring, and training of replacement personnel. And on that subject, they will often hire poorly, costing even more.
A poor manager leads to poor morale which leads to lower productivity. Costly!
A poor manager leads to poor morale which leads to lower productivity. Costly!
Two words on this Lee Iacocca. If you can't do what those you manage do, it is nearly impossible to properly allocate work. Also when crunch time comes you are unable to jump in and keep things running, a critical part of leadership. Before Iacocca took over at the helm of Chrysler he had done nearly every job in the business, and quickly secured the trust and buy in from the UAW that was critically needed to put the whole 80's bail out together and make it work. The line people respected him because they knew he had been one of them in the past. This should be mandatory for line managers.
He did a brief stint in engineering, and then requested a move to sales...
So is that he did near every sales related job in the company and he knew how and ignition system worked thirty years ago...
I may be wrong may be he's a top IT bloke as well, but was too modest to mention it...
The way to get respect is easy. Given that you are good at what you do, you respect those who are good at what you aren't....
Thinking that after X years of not doing it, when almost certainly you didn't do it for that long, that you could just leap in and take over from one of your people, shows absolutley no respect whatsoever. I've been coding for near thirty years and I wouldn't expect to be able to do that.
So is that he did near every sales related job in the company and he knew how and ignition system worked thirty years ago...
I may be wrong may be he's a top IT bloke as well, but was too modest to mention it...
The way to get respect is easy. Given that you are good at what you do, you respect those who are good at what you aren't....
Thinking that after X years of not doing it, when almost certainly you didn't do it for that long, that you could just leap in and take over from one of your people, shows absolutley no respect whatsoever. I've been coding for near thirty years and I wouldn't expect to be able to do that.
In some complex domains, it's true that a manager wouldn't necessarily be able (or expected) to "leap in and take over" (pick up where someone left off coding, for instance). In such cases, a good manager would be expected to have (or to create) other means of handling contingencies such as the sudden loss of a team member. And in order to do that, he still must have a strong understanding of each team member's job and the role he plays in the development process. So, to some extent this is a straw-man argument.
If you are doing someone else's job, you aren't doing yours.
I doubted this guy could do every job in the company, so therefore I doubt was the basis of his undoubted success.
Now if you want to say his sucess as manager was dow to the fact that he could put ten baloons in a bag, an 100 bags ina box, and 10 boxes in a crate....
I know people who'll tell you that isn't as easy as it looks either...
You don't have to know how to X in order to manager Xers, it could help, but it's much more important to understand that you don't know how to X, or did know how to X.
Mangement is about providing an environment for people to do their work, it's not about doing their work for them.
By the way a straw man argument is where you show how clever you are by knocking down a fallacious argument.
Your's didn't qualify as a straw man either. More like two separate sentences linked by a paragraph....
I doubted this guy could do every job in the company, so therefore I doubt was the basis of his undoubted success.
Now if you want to say his sucess as manager was dow to the fact that he could put ten baloons in a bag, an 100 bags ina box, and 10 boxes in a crate....
I know people who'll tell you that isn't as easy as it looks either...
You don't have to know how to X in order to manager Xers, it could help, but it's much more important to understand that you don't know how to X, or did know how to X.
Mangement is about providing an environment for people to do their work, it's not about doing their work for them.
By the way a straw man argument is where you show how clever you are by knocking down a fallacious argument.
Your's didn't qualify as a straw man either. More like two separate sentences linked by a paragraph....
On so many points, the author's positions run so directly contrary to my personal experience that I can't help but wonder if it was written just for the purpose of garnering comments or stirring up a debate.
For instance, there isn't the slightest question that bad managers are a bad thing for any organization of any kind - business or otherwise. Just one of the adverse impacts of a bad manager is a constellation of increased human costs, such as the costs associated with losing good people, and the costs associated with the lowered (NOT improved) performance of those who remain.
The author, peeping out from behind his "Bell Curve" chart, says that the curve is inevitable, ergo bad managers are inevitable. If there is any myth within this argument that should be debunked, it's the notion that the bell curve is inevitable and therefore must be accepted. Unlike certain naturally-occurring phenomena, the curve is most decidedly NOT inevitable in the field of human performance (and if it were, we should fire all of our managers since we'll just get "bell curve" results with or without them). That is to say, it is entirely reasonable for an executive team to tolerate nothing less than excellence from every member of the management staff, and to make that expectation the mission of its management selection and development process. "Oh well - you know, we can't get away from that old devil the bell curve" is a silly argument at best. The bell curve is only what you would expect to see in the ABSENCE of an effective management selection and development process. Do we allow managers themselves to fall back on the "bell curve argument" to explain mediocre team performance?
I take rather precious time out of my day to read TechRepublic articles because they are generally of such high quality. I consider my time today to have been wasted.
For instance, there isn't the slightest question that bad managers are a bad thing for any organization of any kind - business or otherwise. Just one of the adverse impacts of a bad manager is a constellation of increased human costs, such as the costs associated with losing good people, and the costs associated with the lowered (NOT improved) performance of those who remain.
The author, peeping out from behind his "Bell Curve" chart, says that the curve is inevitable, ergo bad managers are inevitable. If there is any myth within this argument that should be debunked, it's the notion that the bell curve is inevitable and therefore must be accepted. Unlike certain naturally-occurring phenomena, the curve is most decidedly NOT inevitable in the field of human performance (and if it were, we should fire all of our managers since we'll just get "bell curve" results with or without them). That is to say, it is entirely reasonable for an executive team to tolerate nothing less than excellence from every member of the management staff, and to make that expectation the mission of its management selection and development process. "Oh well - you know, we can't get away from that old devil the bell curve" is a silly argument at best. The bell curve is only what you would expect to see in the ABSENCE of an effective management selection and development process. Do we allow managers themselves to fall back on the "bell curve argument" to explain mediocre team performance?
I take rather precious time out of my day to read TechRepublic articles because they are generally of such high quality. I consider my time today to have been wasted.
I agree with Brian Taylor; this article seems way below your typical standard, even if Tech Republic is forced to adopt a mythical bell curve for its contributing authors 
.
In addition to Brian's point above, I'd add re: #6 above that it's MOSTLY about managing people. The author says "...if you look at the specific goals how success is defined for most managers - theyre typically more about managing a function or a business than about managing people." Does this even make sense? Who is performing these "functions" or conducting this "business" if not people? The danger here is that some people reading this may not value the communication skills required to work efficiently with employees, and that would be a shame. As I tell my the technical support people I work with in customer service training classes (http://www.impactlearning.com/solutions/training-programs/customer-service/customer-service-training/), you will only be able to ascend so high in any organization if you lack the ability to communicate well with people, and that is a prerequisite for any "manager."
.In addition to Brian's point above, I'd add re: #6 above that it's MOSTLY about managing people. The author says "...if you look at the specific goals how success is defined for most managers - theyre typically more about managing a function or a business than about managing people." Does this even make sense? Who is performing these "functions" or conducting this "business" if not people? The danger here is that some people reading this may not value the communication skills required to work efficiently with employees, and that would be a shame. As I tell my the technical support people I work with in customer service training classes (http://www.impactlearning.com/solutions/training-programs/customer-service/customer-service-training/), you will only be able to ascend so high in any organization if you lack the ability to communicate well with people, and that is a prerequisite for any "manager."
Several points are vaild, but MOST of them are pure BS when it comes to my experience in the REAL WORLD.
I've been on both sides of the desk; I was " rewarded " with a management position and THE TRAINING IT NEEDS...Yes I have hired, yes I have fired.....
You screed is the typical arrogance I have often seen from a corner office, which is one of the reasons I have noted a real decline in TR blogs lately.
Such tripe belongs on BNET, not TR.
Stop wasting my ( and other professionals who have to deal with REALITY ) time when we are looking for ANSWERS....not some halfA opinion...
I've been on both sides of the desk; I was " rewarded " with a management position and THE TRAINING IT NEEDS...Yes I have hired, yes I have fired.....
You screed is the typical arrogance I have often seen from a corner office, which is one of the reasons I have noted a real decline in TR blogs lately.
Such tripe belongs on BNET, not TR.
Stop wasting my ( and other professionals who have to deal with REALITY ) time when we are looking for ANSWERS....not some halfA opinion...
Wish the people in healthcare would understand that. Unfortunately, almost ALL healthcare management jobs make it a prerequisite that you be a physician or nurse, when those managers really will never touch a patient for the rest of their lives.
I can???t even honor this myth with a logical argument; it???s so ridiculous.
The mantra of the Genghis Khan School of Management that says you should emulate Col Allan's alpha-dog habit of urinating in his office washbasin during editorial meetings.
It is who you know, not what you know, and in some cases who you sleep with that gets you the promotion.
It is who you know, not what you know, and in some cases who you sleep with that gets you the promotion.
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