Slashdot Mirror
Uneducated IT Managers, and How to Deal?
R.Mason asks: "I work in an IT department for a small to medium sized family owned business. The job is great, except for our boss. He simply doesn't know nearly as much as he should. Our team finds ourselves teaching him or explaining remedial things far too often. Even when his own computer is acting up, he doesn't know what to do with it and has us fix it while he sits and watches. He spends hours and hours on the most insignificant tasks as if he has nothing better to do. Is it ignorant to believe an IT manager should be a knowledgeable in technology as a whole? A person you respect and frequently learn from? It creates an extremely frustrating work environment, and our team doesn't know how to approach the problem. It's becoming too much to simply "put up with it." What advice do those of you in the IT field have for this issue?"
After enough comments, start printing out the main question and leave it on printers, or email everyone, including the IT manager about how this is a great discussion.
Seriously. He is your manager, somebody hired him. Do you want both your manager and the person who hired him to be pissed off because you are stomping around trying to embarass them?
A manager doesn't necessarily have to know more then you, on the contrary. Think of it like a manager of a rock band. He is not the talent. He directs the talent and gets things done. He doesn't have to be highly talented at music (or IT work). He DOES have to know how to best utilize that talent to get things done. I have never had a more talented manager then myself. I have also managed others who knew far more than I did on certain things. However, coordinating things, prioritizing them, knowing all the ins and outs of having various folks on many disparate tasks, etc. etc. is what managing a team is about. NOT knowing all the piddling details of a persons job.
On the other hand, other managers manage the politics. They represent their group in high-level meetings, translate technobabble into marketspeak, etc.. They also shield their group from the political maneuverings.
Most managers are a blend of both -- and IMO that's the way it should be. Occasionally, however, you run into a manager that leans too far in one direction. They are a pure political animal with (for example) no technical skills, or they're an uber-engineer that pisses off senior management regularly simply due to their social skills.
If you find yourself with one of these people then probably the best thing to do is find a different person to take the "other half." In your case, find a tech person you can respect and make them a "project manager" and let your current manager become a "people manager." They would have to work together, obviously, to effectively manage a group, and that sometimes poses its own challenges. But if it works, it really works. You get the best of both worlds.
Last but not least, if any manager is a complete asshat then they should be reorg'd onto their own sheet of paper and put in charge of "special projects." They can do little damage at that point.
I work in an environment where the reverse has been true. Very bright people routinely got put in management and I'd be happy to have our CTO at any engineer position.
I'm in management myself now and I consider myself to be roughly parrellel in level of knowledge to my staff. This situation has brought with it a very interesting observation: Bright people don't know stuff.
Ya see, the Novell guy, the ADS guy and they router guy aren't always the best at fixing their PCs. They're too focused on their main job and the PC is just a distraction. On the other hand, the really bright guy we hired to do magic with our PC images doesn't have a clue about our Exchange servers.
As the boss of all of these guys, I find myself both giving knowledge and asking for it on a regular basis. Do they think I'm stupid because I don't understand the exact thing they're working on? Maybe. But if they were a little smarter themselves they'd realize there's no way I could know it all. And if I did, I probably wouldn't need them.
TW
I respect my immediate manager a great deal. He is knowlegable but recognises that his team members have their own areas of expertise. He doesn't gloat if you make a mistake or don't know something, and he laughs a lot. I say you can't get better than that, and nor would you expect to.
99% of the time a manager that has zero clue about WHAT he is to be managing typically can not do anything you just said.
Want an example? ok. the last IS manager here that I replaced.
he was always bitching about how the SQL guys were not doing anything and that the VB guys were always surfing the net.
Guess what, the VB guys were surfing the net to figure out SQL because the manager was too fucking stupid to let the SQL guys help the VB guys by them writing the queries. The SQL buys spend much og the time staring at the screen and waiting for a query that is taking too long finish because the manager was TOO FUCKING STUPID to have IT take the servers down once a week to rebuild the indexes and defragment the servers. So his managerial skill, which by the way was to micromanage the entire team and have DAILY meetings which were actually chew outs of the staff and refusal to listen to realistic deadlines only made us lose some of the most talented people we ever had.
Luckily IT found illegal DVD rips on the managers laptop and fried his ass hard with corperate security.
Now? I tell sales that no they can not have that new tool in 2 weeks, they should have asked for us to start on it 5 months ago when they decided secretly that they needed it. I require software specifications before the guys can even be talked to by anyone outside of the department. I demand that the SQL guys do the SQL stuff, and the VB guys do VB stuff and work with each other to get the job done using everyone's expertiese on every project.
Me? I've been in the trenches for 20 years, I have done EVERYTHING IT and IS wise and still do. I help code with the guys, I help the SQL guys and I even help the IT guys by doing the unthinkable and changing toner on printers and other items (OMFG a managerthat actually DOES work! I'll be hanged at the board meetings for sure!)
I know that I am rare, I ignore corperate culture. as a manager I actually do things instead of sit on my ass and I am realistic. In meetings I'm the guy asknig what the budget is and what can we spend because nothing is free (sales managers hate me, VP's love me)
I personally have seen the manager this guy is talking about, I work with several. If they do not understand the department they are running, typically they cant manage a paper bag.
They are there because of friendships or family.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Exactly, except the concept people seem to be groping for here is leadership, not management.
"Let's get rid of management. People don't want to be managed, they want to be led. If you want to manage somebody, manage yourself. Do that well and you'll be ready... to start leading." -- excerpt from an ad placed by United Technologies Corporation in the April 12, 1984 edition of the Wall Street Journal; as noted in the essay Leadership: Management's Better Half by John H. Zenger
Then you'll like this one too. After many requests for our manager to upgrade our desktop machines from limping 500 Mhz processors (this was 3 years ago, when Ghz was old news), I finally decided to send out an email detailing the loss of productivity in compile time on those machines versus my Athlon 1300+ at home. The numbers came out to over a 5x compile time increase, enough to staff an extra developer for an entire month. I had all the screenshots and graphs and charts to back it up. The response? "You make a good argument here, but you forget that we bill by the hour."
Some managers will never get it. There are a dangerous breed out there (like the one mentioned above) that relentlessly pursue power, no matter how (un)qualified they are. Also, the sad but true Peter Principal further facilitates this incompetency. The only effective counter that I've found is to go the grassroots route. If you garner enough support, you may end up with your marketing folks hanging printouts on every office door entitled "Ask not what your developer can do for you, ask what you can do for your developer". It didn't take long after that.
I've thought for some time that the best managers are those who see their jobs backwards from the way most managers see their jobs: they act like they work for the people they manage. They help the employees work well together. They organize and make sure their different employees understand what is going on with the other employees. They evaluate the various obstacles that their employees are facing, and they try to remove those obstacles. They deal with executives and customers so you don't have to.
Well said, thank you. I have the same opinion, but hadn't thought of such a coherent framework for expressing it.
This view also short-circuits another possible problem: the idea that many managers have that they must be paid more than anyone in their team, which in turn leads to talented techies changing into poor managers, because it is the only way to advance. (One would still expect the mangers to be getting above median pay for the company, however.)
The last (only) time I worked in industry, one of my team-mates was the company's alpha geek. He had no underlings, was probably paid about twice what my team-leader was, and more than twice what I was, and was worth more than 4 times as much to the company. This is sensible.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
As part as my undergratuate engineering coursework, we had to take a Professional Ethics class. During that time, I spent 4 weeks going over the Challenger disaster with a fine-tooth comb. It absolutely disgusted me.
By and large, the engineers did their jobs to the best of their ability. They were aware of the O-ring problems, having been warned by the manufacturer and they knew the O-rings had never been tested or launched at the low temperatures that day. They repeatedly voiced their concerns to management. They even refused to sign off on the launch.
The management, on the other hand, didn't take any of it as a serious problem. Of the group directly involved with the launch, only one had a technical background, and he caved almost immediately from the pressure of the majority. The managers were under political pressure to make the launch a go, and that was their only concern.
An engineer by the name of Boisjoly blew the whistle* on what happened knowing full well that by doing so, he would probably ruin his career. No one hires whistleblowers. Otherwise, we might have heard a very different story.
What was the point I was going to make... Ah. Management never seems to have much use for professional ethics, too little understanding of what they are managing, and always seem to think their MBAs are advanced degrees that somehow trump a "lowly" B.S. in Engineering.
I think one of my old professors summed it up best.
Engineers:
The A students go into teaching/academia
The B students get most of the jobs.
The C students go into / switch to management.
*he was later awarded the Prize for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility by the AAAS for doing everything in his power at the time to halt the launch and exemplifying professional behavior
A preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.
Cisco was running 10Mb Ethernet over barbed wire years ago.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
Welcome to small and medium business.
The guy who gets the IT Management gig is the guy who knows what a computer is and possibly how to turn it on.
Yes, it sucks, it really does. This is why we have Monster.
The upside is not all places are like this, and sometimes you get a non-technical person running a technical department who will actually value the opinions of the people working under them, which in turn means you may actually get a reasonable budget, or at least a reasonable manager who understands that things just take time sometimes.
I wouldn't hold my breath though.
Its not the manager's job to know technology. That's what he pays you for. His job is:
1. Figure out which of his people know what they're doing and which don't.
2. Find better people to replace the ones that don't.
3. Make sure that your work is coordinated with your colleagues so that all the needed work gets done.
4. Focus your efforts so that they serve the company's actual needs.
5. Keep the cost of your work within the bounds of what the company can afford.
6. Keep you reasonably content so that you continue to come to work and do a good job.
If you want to judge your manager, don't judge him on how well he can do your job. Judge him on how well he does his.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
I'm a manager of software engineers, as well as a software engineer myself, and whenever I meet someone who knows more than me or is smarter than I am, I do whatever I can to hire that person. Will this person be out to get my job? Doubtful - if I'm hiring qualified people, then my department - which is my responsibility - is doing its' job, therefore so am I.
I've worked for people who knew a lot less that I did; that isn't a problem. The real problem comes up when you work for someone who *doesn't* know as much as you, but thinks he does and requires that you do your job the wrong way.
Think about it - this guy can be frustrating, almost like having your Uncle Ed (that annoying relative that calls you all the time asking if his new keyboard will increase the RAM in his computer) at work all day, but in the end if he lets you do your job and doesn't get in your way, why bother trying to usurp/reform him? He's done his job - he's managed to build a department of smart, capable people, who can perform the tasks under his purview. He's not supposed to do them himself, he's supposed to know how to get *other* people to do them in an efficient manner.
Management requires an entirely different skill set than what most people think. Does it help if the manager can do everyone elses' job in his department? Absolutely - but it's not required, it's only required that he understand the *difficulty* and *qualifications* neccessary to perform the jobs that fall under his jurisdiction.
Honestly, it doesn't sound like you're in that bad of a situation.
But you should understand what a firewall does and why, and what a good firewall ruleset would look like.
I'd say you're half right. A good IT manager should know what firewalls are and why they're important (well enough to justify the expense to upper managment), but understanding a ruleset is clearly a job for a subordinate who can be assigned the time to do it right; its a good example of exactly the kind of knowledge a manager shouldn't have if you want to avoid micromanagement or other interference in day-to-day tasks. The point I'm making here is that a manager should have a good overview of what they're managing, and leave the technical details to people who have been hired specifically to handle the technical details.
Still, from the article:
Even when his own computer is acting up, he doesn't know what to do with it and has us fix it while he sits and watches.
So this guy expects his boss' computer to fail (even though his department of experts "fixes" it), and then complains that his boss doesn't learn about it...seems like they were made for each other. To paraphrase Marx, it sounds like he doesn't want to work for a company that hires people like him.
Blank until
My old manager was a high school teacher before he became a techie. I imagine that he was a good one. The guy knows a LOT, can explain things well, is patient, knows to step back and let us do our thing, but also knows to step in when there are problems.
That manager moved up to a VP slot and is now my boss' boss. My current manager doesn't know as much about what we do or how we do it, but she is a good manager. She knows that her job, in a nutshell is to help us do our jobs. If we have a problem that needs to be elevated, she wants to know 1) What's the problem, 2) Why is it a problem, and 3) What do we, the guys with the experience, see as possible solutions or alternatives. Armed with this information, she tries to resolve the issue. Things may not work out in our favor every time, but we know we've got someone who a) recognizes her shortcomings, b) acknowledges our expertise, and c) is willing to go to bat for us.
Is it any wonder I've worked here for over 10 years?
DD
"Can I finish? Can I finish?
I'll probably get lost amongst the chatter here, but I have to weigh in as I've been both a manager and a technical guy for most of my career. I've had more time as a techie simply because I prefer that line to the management track.
Basically, a good manager does not have to be good at the job of his employees. In fact, more often than not it's preferable that he's not. The reason for this is that managers (good managers at any rate) need to deal with stuff that technical guys find wearing or even bullshit. Stuff like project planning, resource allocation, and generally playing the "politics game". If you're a technical guy in a management position, there's an almost natural tendency to presume that you're better than your employees. That leads to a presumption that you know the answer when they do not, and thus that you can do their job better than they can. It then irrevocably leads to a manager who micro-manages his employees. This makes him a lousy manager.
I personally went into the management job and knew this was a risk. As a result I made a conscious effort to seperate myself from the technology even to the point that I requested my rights to the system be taken away (I was granted admin privileges when I started). This forced me to go to my employees and look to them for solutions. As such, when we had a problem I usually sat down with them, explained the problem and asked them to give me a BRIEF overview of their proposed solution. I always told them to avoid technical details as I didn't need them. Then I usually asked for a timeline for a fix and walked away. I could then go back to the manager / business owner / department head who reported the problem and give them my take on the problem and give them a timeline (usually plus a few hours or days depending upon the extent of the problem). I never told them who was working the problem or how it was going to get fixed. That's how a manager works. This way I showed trust in my employees abilities, kept the heat off their back and set the expectations of the reporter that the problem was being diligently worked on and thus would be fixed.
I'd say 80% of my job was "public-relations" based. To me, my technical knowledge was somewhat of a liability. I ended up looking at solutions to problems and sometimes over-analyzing the solution my employees had come up with. I had my own ideas about solutions more often than not but had to keep them to myself. I couldn't test or implement because I had no access, and if I were to try then I would be showing my employees that I didn't trust their judgement. This undermines the entire department and thus turns you again into a bad manager.
Eventually I quit. Not because I wasn't wanted in the position (I had great working relationships with my employees that I enjoyed and still stay in touch with some of them), but because I had found my "geek-karma" to be a liability to my direction as a manager. I wasn't comfortable being the "general", I found I much preferred being "in the trenches". Besides, honestly I find that I can be much more flexible with my schedule as a techie than I ever could as a manager. Even though I have the occasional evening and weekend work I need to do, I prefer it over the constant 11 and 12 hour days I needed to get all my stuff done as a manager, the interminable meetings and the absolute hard-and-fast requirement that I be in the office between the hours of 8am and 5pm every day... even if I'd been there until 2am dealing with paperwork.
And as for those who comment that a manager will take your "thunder" as a "hot-shot", think about this. When you f**k up, a good manager will also take the hit. I can't count the number of times I had a screw up in my ranks that I had to go to my management and say, "A member of my group dropped the ball. They're diligently working on a solution and I will take full responsibility for it." I got on the wrong side of a few upper managers because I refused to state who on my group screwed up. I always told them I would deal with it in