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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?"
It's just about impossible to find a job working for someone whom you respect. You would not believe some of the stupid things my boss has done!
fire him! ...oh no he's your boss...
Have the entire IT staff sit down with the owner of the company and explain why the owner should fire the moron IT manager.
Is it ignorant to believe an IT manager should be a knowledgeable in technology as a whole?
Yes. Not to be stereotypical, but he is a manager. In a perfect world, he would have tech skills, but he doesn't. So he manages.
As for how to deal with it? I doubt you really have a choice. Not to be cynical, but what are you really going to do about it? Hopefully he isn't a "know it all" type and will actually listen to what you have to say before making a decision. If so, just do your best to educate him in any given situation so he can make the right decision.
in a buisness the same as posted. In a small buisness, everyone usually needs to wear multiple hats. I am the IT Manager, head programmer, etc. Id hate to think how lost my coworkers would be if I didnt know what the hell I am doing. Thats my limited expirence, anyhow.
"Something's wrong with you...and I hope we never do meet again." - Deftones When Girls Telephone Boys
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Is it ignorant to believe an IT manager should be a knowledgeable in technology as a whole?
Short answer: Yes
Long answer: Hell yes.
Hopefully your manager has other positive qualities that out-weight his technical deficiencies. It takes people with varying strengths to make a good team.
Sam
Quit. Seriously.
I don't know your situation at all, but if the manager has any influence on the rest of management, and they even think that he has a modicum of knowledge, your work life will be hell. He (hopefully) realizes that he's not as skilled as his workers, and will try to steal their (your) thunder every chance he gets.
I worked for a manager that knew very little about tech, and any time I had a suggestion for an improvement, it somehow ended up becoming his suggestion by the time it made its way up the food chain. I was lucky enough to land a great job elsewhere and I got the hell out before it got too bad.
My new boss knew less than me technically, but he knew and freely admitted that he knew less, as his job was to be a manager, not a technician. All my successes were mine, and all he took credit for was doing a wonderful job in hiring the right people - which is how it should be, IMHO.
Not saying it's always 100% factual, but more often than not, the perception is that people who are technically apt are not able to deal with people.
Someone who shows "too much" technical knowledge might not ever make it to a managerial position. More often than not if someone knows "too much" about what actually goes into something, they can't dissociate their own opinions about the methods used in order to see the picture and get the job done, IMO.
You said family owned... is he/she in the family?
If not you can always go to his/her boss as a group and air your complaints.
If thats just not politically feasible look for another job or put up with it.
Lastly if you're feeling ballsy tell him/her how you feel. If you do it en masse maybe he/she will resign or take steps to improve the situation.
But, when you go do this if you do, make sure to be nice and positive about it all. Not "Bob is an idiot" but "I'm concerned that Bob may not have the needed skills for this job." That will go a long way.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
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.
I have a manager thats HIGHLY technical, but his management skills suck. He's a YES man to every other department because he doesn't have any balls. He won't back us up and if you go into a meeting with him, you know you're in trouble. He doesn't do evaluations and unless you're asking him a technical question, won't make a decisive answer.
... you don't necessarily need to be highly technical to be a good manager, but if you're a shitty manager you're stuck. Technical skills can be learned, but good people skills are hard to come by.
... I guess it's a toss up. My bosses boss is a great manager, but HIGHLY untechnical. Has a hard time shutting down her computer. It's annoying, sure, having to explain things twice, but at least we can trust her to manage stuff and cover our backs and get stuff done.
I think I'd rather have your boss
I dunno
We emerge from our mother's womb an unformatted diskette; our culture formats us. - Douglas Coupland
You should be thankful.
This guy may not be as technically skilled as you guys are, but it doesn't sound at all like he is meddling either. You may not be gifted with a wonderful experience, but if the guy isn't actually damaging things, I'd leave well enough alone. You may not be as lucky with the next guy.
Think about it, a bunch of management types, who will invariably hire another management type. Do you really want that to be a management type who is also convinced that his role indicates a level of proficiency that he doesn't have?
I feel like that is what you will get next if you push that issue.
Perhaps if you spend more time whining on /. everything will work out for the better.
This is Slashdot. We're ALL smarter than our bosses. You don't catch us whining about it. Much.
It's supposed to be completely automatic, but actually you have to press this button.
The problem doesn't seem to be his technical skills, but his management/time management skills. If you are fixing something, and he sits around watching, then that is a waste of his time. The fact that he doesn't know how to do something isn't the problem, the problem is that he doesn't recognize it, and instead of letting those who know just do it, he tries to, or has someone do it and watches them (a waste of his time).
A good manager should be able to let those with the best skills for the job get those jobs done.
If his technical ability is so low, that he can't understand the projects, and thus can't manage those, then there is a real issue.
Once you get a "manager" title, your technical skill immediately start degrading to some level, but theoretically your management skills should improve.
Ok, I give up, why you?
A difficult time mastering what other people can do easily? Have you considered the possibility that he's a chimp?
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
His response? No freakin' way. Quite simply, this guy was a little bit introverted, didn't like speaking in front of people, didn't really have the social skills to distinguish himself in business meetings. Plus, what he really wanted to do was code, and if he was doing all the stuff I had to do, he'd never have a chance to do it.
DING! Well there you go, I thought. From then on I saw my primary responsiblities as being three: 1.) Advise the coders on what decisions made the most sense based on the overall agenda of the project and its team members and come to an understanding of how we planned to move forward; 2.) Go to meetings and speak to that position, gather requirements from the other team members and communicate them back to my staff; and 3.) Keep the guys out of those same meetings as much as humanly possible.
"All right," I said. "Can do."
Breakfast served all day!
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.
"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 ?"
Here's some advice, and I don't care if you mod me down. Quit your bitching and get back to work, or talk to his supervisor (if he has one) or get another job. This air of entitlement that seems to be the norm in this country these days makes me ill. "Well, I'm smarter than the boss, so I should be in charge." Since when was life ever fair ? Christ, the whole point of being a manager is to hire people who know more about certain things than you do, and to delegate tasks. Can you blame him for wanting to learn ?
I work in Hollywood, and for the last few years we've actually watched higher-ups switch to computers FOR THE FIRST TIME. You want to know what training those people is like ?
Not every boss you work for is going to know more than you know. Your job is to do the best you can. I know plenty of people who aren't being used to their full potential. If it's making you so miserable, quit and give your job to the hoards of other eager young IT professionals that would love to have it. But enough with the cries for sympathy.
Now drop and give me fifty, soldier !!
StupidChildren...the reason jesus is crying
Just to start out with, I am a technical IT manager, and I'm quite knowledgeable about everything that my department works on.
Now, that being said, to do my job, you don't have to be a technical whiz. It certainly helps, but isn't a requirement.
Many good managers of technical departments are not technical themselves. They work on budgets, planning, and leave the technical decision making up to their underlings. If, as a manager, they employ qualified, knowledgable employees, he can rely on their skills for the technical stuff, and he can use his managerial skills to keep the department happy, funded and well-respected.
The technical guys can do what they are good at, and the manager can do what he is good at.
Now, if your manager is non-technical, as well as a being poor at budgeting, politics and management, I agree with the department sitting down with the company president as a group and explain the situation.
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.
My rather verbose boss, head of IT, wanted us to come up with a contingency plan for ethernet. At first we looked at each other trying to figure out what he meant. Evidently, he wanted an alternative to ethernet that still provided networking just in case ethernet failed. We're not talking about a device failing or the network being down, we're talking about failure of the protocol itself. And he wanted us to find a way around that... Did I mention we were just a regular office of about 30 people with a sum total of 3 IT workers?
I dealt with this a few years back. Thankfully the company's VP used to be a tech guy and realized how little our manager knew... he was let go due to "budgetary" reasons.
The thing is, managers act as a buffer between tech staff and the rest of the company. In some companies this isn't true, but at ours it was. If one of the other managers had an issue, they weren't supposed to talk to us about it. They were supposed to talk to our manager. That allowed him to do what he was supposed to do (manage) and gave us more time to do our work.
I would assume that your boss knows that he isn't nearly as gifted as the rest of your team, which is why he doesn't meddle like some managers do. Be thankful for that, and try giving him a point here or there on easier stuff so he can try doing those things better. Since he doesn't sound like a bad guy, just deal with it. The benefits of you not having to do management tasks (budgets, taking heat when something goes wrong, dealing with higher management, managing losers like his workers) are a fair tradeoff.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
As for ways to check, you yourself might start to take an interest in higher level "manager" functions, and just curiously ask him about it, see what he knows, play dumb, etc. Not only might you gain some insight and possibly a great deal of respect for him, but you've also started on the path to letting him know you might one day be interested in more responsibilities yourself.
You: *reading slashdot*
Uneducated Manager: *stops and peers over your sholder* "What are you doing?!"
You: "Researching technology..."
Uneducated Manager: "Oh! I see... Um... Carry on!"
You: *starts to write comment "In Soviet Russia..."*
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
I've had managers in IT that were generally non-technical, but damn good managers. I've also heard of a great many technical managers who tend to spend more time playing with new ideas and toys, or thinking they can do their employees' job than actually managing.
Semi-unrelated, but I've also noticed that my best managers were women, can anyone else comment on that?
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
Is it ignorant to believe an IT manager should be a knowledgeable in technology as a whole?
Knowledgable, perhaps. It's not a requirement for a manager to know the nuts and bolts of the work, but he should have a good handle on the big picture and a set of priorities for his staff that he should be able to clearly share.
A person you respect and frequently learn from?
Respect is important, but learning from your manager is less so - unless you want to learn about personnel management or company politics. A good manager should be able to protect his staff from those problems.
IMHO, of course.
Is it ignorant to believe an IT manager should be a knowledgeable in technology as a whole?
Short answer: Yes
Long answer: Hell yes.
Seriously: You misunderstand his job.
His job is NOT to drive the tech. (If he's knowlegable it's a bonus, but it's not required.)
His job is:
- to keep upper management (and himself!) off your back
- to get you the resources you need to do YOUR job
- to set policy for the department
- to evaluate your performance and assist you in improving it
- to settle disputes and allocate resources and tasks among the department's members
Many of these are helped somewhat by technical knowlege. Some are actually hindered.
In particular, if he knows too much or rose from the ranks, he is likely to try to do some of the work himself (and neglect his other, more important functions) or worse yet try to micro-manage YOUR work, making decisions for you and otherwise getting in the way.
In a VERY small company or a startup he might also "wear the hat" of an individual contributor and spend part (ONLY part) of his time as a member of the team. But this is dangerous for a number of reasons (starting with you judging his managerial competence by his individual-contributor competence). And in even a moderately-sized department it's impossible: If he's doing it, he should be out hiring another hand (or fighting for a req to enable that).
Don't think of him as a more-expert team member: That's the Tech Lead's job. Don't even think of him as Captain Kirk to your team's Spock, Sulu, Scotty, Uhura, Checkov, and Bones (though that's much closer.)
Think of him as your stereotypical congressman - out doing political battle and deal-wheeling to bring home some pork and change the laws in your town's favor.
Meanwhile: His job is not to BE a star: His job is to make it possible for MORE THAN ONE of you to be stars. Your job is to make him, you, and your co-workers look good to those above him, by keeping his promises to them and feeding him good information.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
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.
IMO good manager knows it's not his job to do the job. It's his job to make it easy for his subordinates to do their jobs.
I'm an IT manager and head of RnD. Yes, it can be too much to ask
Get over it. You don't want an IT manager who knows more about technology than you do. You want an IT manager who trusts you to be more knowledgeable, and knows how to manage. Knows how to keep upper management out of your goddamn face so you can get your work done, knows how to motivate you, and is smart enough to make the understand that if he's busy managing he can't keep up with technology.
I basically had to give up being tops in my field anymore, because I can't recreationally pursue pure technology any more. Just the facts of the job, and I'm a better manager for it.
However, having an IT manager who can't use his computer is a problem. The question I have is it because he is incapable, or because he is stretched to thin to deal with it any more? My boss has trouble with FrontPage for god's sake, which (having never used the program in my life) I fixed in less than a minute.
Of course, this was the same guy who built all of the core technology our company is built on from scratch 7 years ago. He's just too busy managing money, manageing resources, and generally being a CEO to focus all his brain power on the problem in front of him
...that you haven't given us enough information to say whether or not your boss is actually unqualified to do *his* job. You didn't mention anything about his management or communication skills, so assuming those are right on, then this just sounds like typical griping. If he lacks the aforementioned skills, then I think he should seek success elsewhere.
Well said.
As an IT manager, my time (in my current job, your mileage may vary) is best spent working to allow my employees to be as efficient as possible. Employees that don't have to jump through tons of hoops or red to get their stuff done will be happier as a result.
So let me do that mundane stuff, and you can go be effective at what your role in the organization is.
As someone in another thread mentioned, I'm a proponant of the thinking that *I* work for the employee. Whatever I can do to make them more effective, efficient, etc. is a plus to the company.
Just my $0.02.
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Unfortunately, the lesson is how fast you can pull a Houdini and dial 911.
- Just my $0.02, take with a grain of salt, your mileage may vary.
While I agree that to be a great IT manager you need to have a solid understanding of development, it is not required. You didn't mention if this person was reasonable with expectations or trusting of your recommendations, just that it was annoying that they didn't know enough about your work.
If your manager understands people, can be effectively guide your team to accomplish the goals for your company, and promote your team's value to the company leaders then I don't see any problem with helping them with computer problems. However, if they have poor leadership skills then I agree with the "Quit" suggestion above.
I just (today) got laid off from a fortune 100 company after 14 years of service. During that time, I had a mix of managers most of whom did not understand IT. I have found that the best and most inspirational leadership ability was not related to their knowledge of IT.
Unfortunately my last manager not only didn't understand IT but had terrible people skills. She didn't trust us, didn't understand the work, and made poor strategic decisions. I can easily see why we were targeted for a layoff--Don't let yourself get caught in the same trap.
This is so wrong I just have to chime in.
First, a technical manager without technical experience is worthless.
Second, managers with no industry knowledge other than first year MBA knowledge, (your quote), are worthless.
Third, anyone who does NOT understand that handling both people AND systems requires insight into both is not woth your time.
I supervised 36 people in an Air Force computer shop that maintained about 12 different mainframe systems. My techs knew more than I did about those systems. My job as I saw it was to find ways to achieve the best performance from those 36 people. It didn't mean diddly if I didn't know those systems. What mattered is how well I could get the overall picture from those people to derive a good plan. You don't have to be "the expert in everything" to be a good IT manager. You just have to know who the experts are and to rely on their input.
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
...unless you are part of the family. A comment from the voice of bitter experience.
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 used to be in the exact same situation. I would be the geek, and my boss would handle the managerial duties without understanding what exactly it was that I was doing. It often crossed my mind that someone who knew the technical end of my department better should be the one managing it. After putting in my time as a lowly tech, the company grew, and my boss got promoted. Having now spent close to 3 years as Technical Manager, I see things in a much different light. My job is to MANAGE, and let my techs do the tech, just as our respective job titles imply. I oftentimes find myself losing a grip on current tech and learning technical tricks from the people that I trained, and this is OK. Sometimes the current task that I may be working on may seen trivial to some, as I used to think of my boss, but things are a lot different on the other side of the fence. I am simply a spokesman, they are the ones that get the job done and they are the ones that deserve the credit for the work. When it comes down to it though, I do miss being a tech frequently. Just be thankful that someone else, technical or not, is writing reports and sitting through meetings instead of YOU.
Most people have poor technical skills so you pay for those that have them.
Most people have poor managerial skills so you pay for those that have them.
Expect to pay heaps for good Technical and managerial skill in the one package.
There is a school of thought that technical people make poor managers. This is wrong. Most people make poor managers and training just makes these people believe that they are good managers.
If you had a problem with me you guys could have just come to me and said something.
Oh and hey my DHCP is DNSing again.
This
good thing too, because if she wasn't, i would have had nothing to distract me from the fact that the video was not funny and i just wasted two minutes of my life. Thanks a lot GP.
Our office's IT person yanked QuickTime off my desktop computer because according to her, it was a security problem because "QuickTime goes across the net to check the time...you know...that's why they call it Quick Time."
She also denied me the right to install Mozilla FireFox because according to her, "Mozilla has more security holes in it than IE." If anyone wonders why IE ranks so highly in visits to Slashdot, its probably because so many employers have wankers for IT staff that won't allow any other type of browser installed on the office machines.
The same IT person tried to claim that our office had to buy a new license for a copy of Microsoft Visio that was installed on a machine that nobody used anymore instead of uninstalling it from that particular machine and reinstall the program on the computer of the employee who requested the program. Management wouldn't listen to my protests on this until I produced an email from Microsoft directly indicating the extra license purchase was unnecessary.
Yet another case of bonehead government IT staff justifying their knowledge and position with an MCSE certification.
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
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.
Now I'm a manager. I don't know what to do with it. Everyone we hired is expected to know more about either chemistry or chemical engineering more than I do and I'm supposed to make them work efficiently. It is really hard. Much harder than working efficiently myself. It is not that we are clueless, but we frequently have to hire people who know more than we do. Cut us managers some slack.
Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the War Room!
I have read Slashdot for a while and never felt the need to comment being that my real insight into technology is nonexistant. Yes, I am a boss just like the one you're talking about.
First thing to realize is that unless your boss is a technical lead who's a developer/tech, he is hired to things which are different from what you're hired to do.
I have no clue how to fix a computer, I don't even know what version of Windows I am writing this on. But I do know how to keep a few hundred developer from programming our company out of business. We have guys whose job it is to keep my PC running. I can't do what they do, and they sure as hell can't do what I do!
Second thing: How does your manager measure success? Since I know I can't develop the whole product myself, the only way I know to succeed is to make sure my developers succeed. That's the only thing I can shoot towards which will produce net gain for the company. If your manager measures himself the same way, you're golden. If he realizes he's not a tech and lets techs do their job, what more can you ask for? Would you preffer a tech manager who was convinced (rightly or wrongly) that he could do the job better than his underlings?
Third: I heard people complain about their bosses this way (I am often the target) Usually its sourgrapes whose root cause has zero to do with management's technical ability. Sometimes the manager's personality clashes with the employees, or the employee is jelous of the status and money. If these are the true causes of your discontent, look within yourself for a resolution.
Fourth: all other things being equal, a good manager who also posesses an understanding of what his people do is more valuable than a manager lacking that understanding. In other words, if you can learn all the non-technical stuff your boss does and he doesn't learn the tech stuff you do, you will soon become more valuable to the firm than he is. If this is your ambition, go for it.
Finally, you'll be better off if you learn what it is that your managers are held accountable for by THEIR bosses. You bet your ass your boss isn't measured by how well he can fix the computer, but only by how many computers you as a department fix in the year (or some metric along the same lines).
Mock Tech Interviews & Free Resume Review
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.
If you take your laptop out of range while you have the Token, you get to keep it. If you collect 10 of them, you can mail them in for a prize.
sudo eat my shorts
I have to say I am in that position as well. But, I kind of have a different outlook on things.
/she was way ahead of the employees. Might be the break he or she would need to find a better job that pays more elsewhere.
I am not so sure an IT manager would still be there very long if he
Another thing.. I, Personally.. as a Tech.. would rather work with a manager who doesn't know as much as the techs do.. than one who "knows it all" anyday of the week.
In my case, instead of dreading having to explain something new to a manager, or over and over again.. I looked at it as a chance to make sure I knew what I was talking about TO be able to teach someone. Also, it gave me the confidence to be able to practice HOW to teach someone that isn't at the same level I am at. Each person learns differently. Knowing I had to "teach" a manager gave me the opportunity to learn how to convey knowledge which in turn has helped me in other areas.. and I didn't have to worry about it being a client!
On a side note.. From my expereince, it's not the ones that have the best skills that are the best techs.. many more times it is the ones that may have lower skills but can adapt to other levels and be able to exaplin it inside and out - so those who who do not have the skills CAN understand - are the ones who are better.
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
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?
;)
Unfortunately your only choices are to either "put up with it", or find another job. You won't change your manager, you won't make him grasp IT concepts more than he's willing to, etc.
However there are various ways to "put up with it". The honest approach (my favorite) is to actually offer alternatives. They do exist. And when given a price to implement such an alternative he'll quickly back off. At that point, make sure to point out to him (in a subtle manner) that Ethernet is not going to fail. Don't try to make him look stupid, just point out the facts, but only after offering alternatives as he requested.
This applies to any field, in my experience. Some managers are the type who:
- Always try to cover their ass, whether they know what they're talking about or not;
- Do not like being proven wrong or told how something is done/how something works.
The best way to approach such a manager is to offer a suggestion. I prefer the "hm, well, what if instead we did this?" approach. It lets them make it out to be their idea, and avoids them feeling like you're trying to tell them what to do.
As much as I hate the boss taking credit for my ideas, it really works out better that way. For one, the boss does in fact know where the good ideas come from, even if it isn't publically acknowledged. Secondly, if you try to outsmart the boss, it won't get you any further (in most cases anyway). And the ones who really matter, know where the ideas are really coming from.
Bottom line is, either learn to "put up with it" to use your words, or go elsewhere. Because I have never known a manager of that type to change their ways or acknowledge a better idea without feeling threatened. You can learn to work with the situation, even to your advantage, if you really try and are subtle about it.
If you are really smarter than him, surely you can get your way while letting him believe he's getting his way
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.
Its not too much to ask at all. He's not asking for a manager that knows all the details of everything. But an IT manager should have been a tech at some point, and should have a good deal of IT knowledge.
For instance, you don't have to know what command is used to reload the firewall ruleset. But you should understand what a firewall does and why, and what a good firewall ruleset would look like.
Don't get confused and think its ok for an IT manager to be completely clueless and not understand basic, fundamental concepts, just because they don't have time to know the details. He should be capable of learning the details on his own if he had the time, otherwise he is incompetant.
For starters, let me tell you about my life. I hate my job. I really do. But I live in a town where there is nowhere else to work.
I have come to learn something in my life...
Ignore your job. Remember, it is just a means to an end. My manager makes stupid decisions. My co-workers are all stupid and spend hours each day congratulating themselves on a job "well done".
The secret is to care just enough to keep your job and do it well. Forget about all of the other crap.
You work to feed your family and your children. Your company will never thank you for all of the hard work you put in. They will never recognize you for your talents.
Just do your job... and go home to what realy counts....
Your family.
And Half-Life 2...
YEAH, BABY, YEAH!!!!!!!
You can't hide from stupid people, so have them send tickets. This might even be a good way for this manager to come to some sort of realization of whats important and whats not.
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
And get ready for your day in the barrel. After a certain level, it's no longer your boss's job to understand all the technical nuances. He's there to motivate you, sort through the advice he gets from all of his team and chart a course from there.
It's impossible to keep up with ALL the technologies involved as you move up the food chain, not only because you have other responsibilities, but becasue you manage a wider and wider array of technologies. One person cannot possibly know everything.
Butch up, get over it, and try supporting your manager rather than tearing them down. If you're seen as a reliable source for info on (your specialty here), he'll take your opinion and worry about those areas where he's not sure of his staff's expertise.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
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.
Technical knowlege != good technical manager.
Between traditional employment and contracting and consulting I've seen alot of managers in action that run the whole gamut of technical knowhow and I've noticed almost no correlation between technical skills and good management. We all bitch about the clueless boss, but sometimes the clueless boss *knows* he is clueless and sticks to the things that he can do and lets his engineers make the decisions he can't which actually gives us *more* control over our lives since it frees us to implement processes and technologies that actually work instead of those that some hottie saleschick convinced the boss he had to have.
Most of the things a manager needs to do are not technical or are things he should not be doing without input from his top engineers. He needs to:
If you have a non-technical manager who can get your team the resources it needs, keep others off your backs, lets you self-prioritize and self-schedule as much as possible and gets you raises and cool toys, then KEEP HIM. Just convince him that he needs to defer technology decisions to the senior engineers. He probably isn't really that comfortable making those decisions anyway and I have found mba-types to often be quite easy to guide to the realizition that making a tech decision is not a managerial task.
On the other hand, I have had some highly technical managers who couldn't keep their little fingers out of every little situation--often with dated knowledge since they can't stay fresh like a practicing engineer. I once had a manager who had been out of the trenches for a decade but who insisted on logging in and "looking around" during really hot problems. Inevitably he'd walk in every 30 minutes and ask about something we had already seen and discounted or taken care of. Once as a joke we modified his shell so that it just said "Everything is working fine, sir." no matter what he typed.. lol :)
The problem with lots of MBA-mill managers is that they apply the crap they learned in school to managing developers and engineers and don't understand that what we do IS NOT MANUFACTURING! Most high-tech work is highly creative and hours worked does not always correlate to productivity. Problem solving, coding, etc all require focus and inspiration and do not respond well to traditional management techniques. So that is the main upside to a technical manager is that he at least has been there and has some idea what it is like. Unfortunately many technical managers can be so lacking in management skills that are clumsy for a long time before they learn how to manage engineers. This can be compounded since so many of us have had bad managers--it's like child-abuse, even if they know the a-hole boss method doesn't work on engineers it's the only thing they've experienced and so they revert to it out of desperation because subconsciously that's how they think a boss is supposed to act.
The ideal manager is one who understands *engineers* since that is what he is managing. If he understands the technology that is a big bonus if he is able to do all the other stuff. But I'd trade a technical boss who can't protect his people or wage corporate war effectively for a "clueless" MBA who can wrap the C-level executives around his little finger any day of the week.
I'm posting a bit late, so this will likely be lost in the mess of people taking the opportunity to be funny and being generally unhelpful, but I was experiancing simular trouble with my parents. Albeit that was more annoying than aggrivating. My solution was to teach them how to fend for themselves. I showed them Wikipedia for terminology they didn't know and also instead of showing them how to fix their problem, I showed them how to search google ("howto" "example" "help" "faq" and other keywords) for a solution to their problem and then made them fix it for themselves. My rule was that if they hadn't been reading HOWTO's for at least half an hour, they didn't need my help yet. Of course, you have to do all this much more descretly than I was able to. I'd employ tricks like, "Oh, yea. I can take care of that, but I've been trying to finish this thing all morning. Go ahead and see what you can find out for us [those two words are surprisingly important] on google while I take half an hour to get this done." Something a little more difficult is to get him to read, on a regular basis, pages like Slashdot. When I first started reading slashdot (although Digg might be better for the slightly less technically inclined) I had ABSOLUTLY NO IDEA what half the stuff was about. But as I started seeing the same words in more and more context, I figured it out and now it's been a couple of years since I've seen something that I had no clue on.
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