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Best Way to Manage Geeks?
drummerboy195 writes to tell us that he recently read a 1999 interview with Eric Schmidt, then CEO of Novell, and wondered how applicable the information was today. How much have things changed since the dot com bust in terms of management? What other good and bad techniques have Slashdotters seen evolve from both supervisory and supervised positions?
The best way to manage geeks? Well, I pretty much treat them like any other employee. Honesty, fair and equitable treatment for everyone while not indulging high maintenance employees at the expense of others. You pay people what they are worth, treat them with respect, challenge them while rewarding success and you will have lower turnover and decreased personnel costs. However, the geeks (typically programmers, but hard to define in science) need to realize that they are part of a team and they are part of a greater whole. Those who need more, will move on to other companies or their own companies and that is not necessarily a bad thing. However, the longer you can hold onto those successful individuals, the more successful your company/organization will be.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Simple.
Remove all the layers of dreck management who simply get in the way.
Yes you may have got a 1st in Etruscan pottery/Elizebethan clothing/Interior lighting. Yes you may be intelligent but you have FUCK ALL knowledge of computing. Yes you know how to schmooze the clients but you have FUCK ALL knowledge of what we actually do for the clients.
So stop bugging me every ten minutes when you want to update your retarded "man hours per task" spreadsheet. Stop bothering me about my "unfashionable" attire (i.e. anything you don't see in you fucking Sunday supplements) Leave me the fuck alone to do the fucking job you're paying me for... i.e. provide a technical solution to a problem.
So the best way to manage Geeks is simply to leave them alone. If they've gone off on a tangent and it's going nowhere point this out. But generally leave them the fuck alone.
Either that or take out the entire chain of middle management and shoot them. All you need is a good captain, a good first mate and a good crew. All the rest are simply shark food.
Arr.
1999:
> we have permanently entered a new economy
> The geeks control the limits of your business
> rich salaries and hefty stock options that they now command.
> give them promotions without turning them into managers
2005:
Geeks are the lowest paid again. Managers are the highest paid again. There are things managers can do today, experiences they can have, which geeks will never have. The dual track approach doesn't motivate anymore and Indian startups like Google Bangalore actually let their geeks become managers.
Only in extremely rare upturns have geeks ever commanded the lifestyle that managers have. For most of history, if you want to live in a house, if you want to go to concerts, if you want to get married, you have to be a manager.
Different people find different things boring. And most boring tasks can be automated, a metatask that geeks usually love. While plenty of stubbornly boring tasks don't require geeks - boring normal people are suited to them, especially with geek-produced tools.
Sure, there will probably always be tasks you can't interest a geek in that needs a geek to do. But management is an inexact science. The story submitter asked for "best way", not "perfect way" to manage geeks. If you're really a geek, you'll appreciate the difference.
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make install -not war
We have names for employees like you - hourly wage earners. Someone who comes in at 7:30, punches the clock, does exactly as they're told, and goes home after they have 8 hours in, and is never expected to give anything more.
If only it were that black and white. You must work in a small organization. I work for a fairly big one (IT alone is 400+ people, not including the outsourced hardware/network support), and have been in many situations where showing initiative would lead to a lot of trouble. You can't always just willy nilly start to experiment on your own, or you screw other teams up. To do it right you have to coordinate with everybody and by the time you do it's 3 weeks later.
That kind of environment sucks a lot of life out of you, especially if you're new to it and just learning. I'm not saying that it's a good way to be doing things, just that it is that way in a lot of places. Turnover is not unsurprisingly quite high.
You are right that anybody doing only what they're asked and no more isn't a valuable employee. All I'm saying is that in a large organization you aren't always able to take the initiative even when you spot a chance to.
I work with a damn talented bunch of people who will do whatever it takes to fix a problem, and who are always looking for (and finding) ways to improve our systems. But if we tried to actually do anything without first checking with our manager and making sure all the affected groups are informed, we'd cause chaos.
1) Flex time, when appropriate. If I am working on some kind of deep core system where I just code and code and code and the only person I'm interacting with is a manager, why should I be on a 9-5 schedule? If it *really* doesn't matter so long as I get my shit done, let me come in at times where I can get my shit done most effectively.
/. and other such stuff - let me do it without having to fear that I'm going to lose my job because I need a mental floss break. I'm going to do it anyway, so why not let me do it without stress? Even better - FAR BETTER - let me work on something that is blue-sky stuff for 20% of my time. One place I worked at actually bought me animation/3D design software to use and encouraged me to take up to a day a week to work on it - on their dime. It wound up coming back to them 10-fold: when they were updating their website, and needed a bunc
2) Meeting issues. There are 3 kinds of meetings, in my mind: Meetings that are productive and important for me, meetings that are productive and important to other people, and meetings where upper management wants to whack off in public. The first kind of meeting I'll go to gladly. The second kind of meeting I'd like to always be optional. The third kind - you know, where upper management gets up and talks about shit like the direction the company is heading - well, they can email me a ppt presentation... I promise, I'll read it... Yeah... If I want to know about some big initiative the company is having, I'll print out a letter from the CEO and read it while I'm on the crapper, ok? I don't need to have some special ed like encounter group where we all blow smoke up each other's asses.
3) Respect. I don't mean people praising what I do or telling me I'm great. I mean respect like not treating me like some kind of half-functional asocial asshole because I happen to have technology skills. I really hate being treated like some kind of pet nerdling, to be brought out and questioned by the marketing people when they need the opinion of someone who, like, knows how to do math.
4) Respect. Really! Again, this is important. Just because *some* geeks are proud of their Autistic-like behavior doesn't mean we all are. Don't speak to me like I'm a child, and I'll be happy.
5) Privacy. Or, rather, a lack of frequent interruptions. There's a well known study that shows that most people can remember +/- 7 things simultaneously. Programmers frequently come in WAY on the right hand side of that particular bell curve because, one of the things we have to do is keep stuff in ready memory - highly specific, exact stuff. It isn't like we're writing a letter and we just need to remember the gist of something for later - we need to remember every damn bit of the thing we're working on (at least, I do) in order to accomplish stuff.
6) Little things. The best motivator I ever got came at the end of a 3 week crunch. I was taken aside by my manager, given an attagirl, told not to bother coming in on Friday because I would be expected to be enjoying the free spa day the company had signed me up for. Cost to them? 1 day's pay for me + $300 or so, but they had a ferociously motivated person coming back to work on Monday.
7) Managers who can manage. A boss's job is broken into two parts: supervising me and protecting me. Supervising means getting work to me and letting me know what's expected on it. I take a lot of initiative, but when I am handed a task, I would like to know what I'm supposed to do, when I'm supposed to have it done by, and (if applicable) what methods I'm required to use to do it (if I don't have a choice). Protecting me means keeping assholes like Phil in business development from swinging by and talking my ear off for a half hour in the afternoon. It means not scheduling me for meetings that are a complete and absolute waste of my time. Basically, doing all those helpful things that allow me to do what I can do.
8) Be realistic. Let's face it - at *least* 20% of my time is spent on shit like reading
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
I already survived my first tour as a PHB, so here are some things I noticed:
1. Hard boundaries. Some of us geeks every now and then think we can get away with murder. Which is true but no need to rub it on non-geeks' faces.
2. Shit umbrella. Your job as a boss is to isolate your employees from the bullshit so they can work. If you protect your employees from the bullshit, they will work their asses off for you.
3. No second guessing. If you hire a guy because he is an expert on ABC, and he gives you his best educated guess on an issue about ABC, give him the benefit of the doubt. Don't go asking a wannabe geek that read ABC for Dummies for his opinion. And please, don't go back to the expert to tell him "so and so says you are wrong." It is stupid.
4. Be flexible. Let your geek pick his workstation OS, most of the cases he'll ask for Linux so it won't cost you a penny and he will feel happier about it. Let each employee expense out no less than one O'Reilly title per quarter, even better if you can get away with doing it once per month.
5. Pick their brains. Geeks don't mind if you ask them what-ifs. If it is obvious that the geek has more in his mind, ask him to write a white paper and give him credit for it on his next review.
6. Feed them. If your geeks are stuck at the office past 6 PM, and you know for sure it is not their fault, call in for some pizzas or chinese. A well-fed geek is a happy geek. If possible, every two months or so send your geeks out for a long "work" lunch and let them argue technical issues without being bothered by people outside of their team. If marketing and sales can meet outside on the company's tab, so can your geeks.
7. Paid time off is sacred. If you give the guy the day off, make sure everyone knows he is not to be disturbed even if the company servers catch on fire. Geeks usually take less PTO than regular employees, so you need to make sure that whatever little time they take will be peaceful for them.
8. Free caffeine. Our 15-employee company has about 9 coffee drinkers. We ran our own coffee club for about a year ($5/month per person) and we never ran out of supplies. After the first year the boss took over paying for our supplies. It is nice to have good coffee in the office and it saves you the hassle of having to run downstairs and wait in line for overpriced coffee.
9. Allow some flex time, especially if your geeks monitor servers from home. When people start bitching about Dilbert working 7AM->3:15PM, tell them that Dilbert goes home, takes a nap and works until close to midnight. Oh, and he is salaried too.
10. Allow some latitude with the work attire. If your geek has zero external customer contact in person, then you should let them wear jeans if they like to. My only rule for jeans was that they had to be clean and without tears or patches. As for t-shirts, some people like them, I don't. I think jeans and golf shirts are confortable enough for a relaxed environment.
Pedro
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The Insomniac Coder
I was a manager and am now back to being a regular employee (who leads a team).
Coming up through the ranks I thought that staff meetings were a waste of time, but I was wrong. I rarely held formal staff meetings and attempted to manage by wandering around. The problem I found with this was that certain people were easy to talk to one-on-one and others weren't, so through reticence messages I needed to give to the team as a whole were delivered late to some. These people felt I played favorites, and unconsciously, I did.
I rewarded people with monetary rewards and always accepted comp. time, but the reward that got the best response from people was just not having them come in when their project was finished (not employee-initiated comp. time, but like a suprise holiday).
The perk I always liked was free t-shirts commemorating a project. I didn't wear them much, but I liked wearing them outside work as a badge of what I do. This perk died at the turn of the century. Am I alone in this?
Since I stopped being a manager these are the worst things I've seen that you can do as a manager in your staff meetings:
Read powerpoint slides from meetings you've attended without offering any insights or interpretations.
Start your meeting with the phrase "I really don't have anything to talk about" then proceed to talk for 45 minutes anyway.
Say "Well, I know something about that, but I can't say anything" and then not say anything.
Differences between managing in 1999 vs. now:
More people telecommute and never come in so you need to manage over the phone. This is much harder than you'll think it will be.
I'd rather be preterite
I spend a minimum of 50% of my week programming and I haven't worn a suit since prep school. The people who work for me have a great deal of freedom. That freedom is secured by a very well defined yet minimal set of agreements. Everyone inside and outside my group understands the agreements and recognizes the importance of maintaining them. A regular reasonable work schedule is just one agreement.
I haven't had any problems filling my open slots and I haven't lost or fired anyone in over two years. There are plenty of developers who welcome such structure. For those who don't there are plenty of other places to work.
I have two "geeks" who call me "Sir" ( even though I tell them not to. They still call me "sir". ) and I have found that the best way to manage them is to give them the problem, and say "Go solve this." and let them go and Just Do It. (Nike Swoosh(tm))
When they need "Elevated Authority" they come to me, but I've found that telling them the problem, and letting -their own- judgement dictate the methods of solving the problem, often A: makes them -HAPPY- to work for me. and B: Solves the problem. Is INFINTELY better than micromanaging them.
"Here is $Problem, take care of it." and let them do -whatever they need- to, has worked far better for us than any other management(of interns) methods yet.
This way we are letting them decide what is the best way to reach the goal. and -TRUSTING- them to reach that goal. (which is often more valuable than the goal itself) and in the end, if they fail, I can show them why.
I have two "geeks" in my charge, that would kill themselves if I asked them to. They'd take my hardest tasks -any- day, over the HRs mindless shuffling of paperwork, because I let -their own- judgement choose how to solve the problem.
You want to manage geeks? Tell them what needs to be accomplished, and give them free reign to do whatever their training and personal skills tells them is necessary to solve the problem. I've never -ever- had one come to me with a failure.
But! There is a Caveat. You have to be willing to let your "geek" run free. Not only that. You will have to let your "geek" know (consiously or unconsiously) that you will take the hit, for his failures. Because at the end of the day... his glory is yours.. his failure is yours. If you let him -Run- with whatever he wants.. Let him -know- that you will absorb his fuck ups. You -will- get magic. BUT! You have to let your "Geek" run.
Only then, will your "Geek" truely shine.
-rdewalt