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Dealing With an Authoritarian Management Style In IT?
A New Cog asks: "My software development group, including my manager, was moved recently under another bigger group with different style of management. The new objective for the group is to 'speak as one person', meaning that the reasons behind management decisions are well understood and technical information is well communicated. At first, it seemed to be a very good thing to do. In reality, it was just a disguised authoritarian method of imposing information censorship and making sure there is no opposition within. We used to cooperate openly with each other and people from other groups, exchanging opinions and ideas, but after few schooling sessions in front of the bigger group, everyone is now quietly doing what they are told. Now, there is less and less satisfaction from the work I do. Is this just a sign of maturing organization and transitional pain is a necessary side effect in order to have a better future, or is this a sign of things to come. I feel that no true creativity is going to happen in place where motivation and productivity are affected by frustration and threat of loosing one's job? I like my job, but what can I do now in order to keep my satisfaction with it?"
At least they haven't stopped you posting on slashdot ... yet.
As a management style, there will be two likely outcomes. One, it will actually succeed and bring positive things to the business - this will be a Good Thing. Probably more likely, your department will make some enormous mistakes because of the supression of internal debate and be reorganised.. in which case you need to make sure that you're out of the frame, or else this will be a very Bad Thing.
Don't forget the ultimate sanction - if the place sucks, leave.
Never email donotemail@WeAreSpammers.com
Usually it is just the sign of the management style of your manager. The recommendations I could make is to first have an upto date resume. Second, every time you send recommendations and analysis to your manager, do it via email. Third, every time your manager talks to you, send him or her an email with a synopsis of what was discussed and thanking them for their time. Fourth, ask yourself if it is worth it. Finally, read Winning, every person who works in a corporate enterprize needs to read this.
In God we trust, all others require data.
Personally, whenever I've been in your situation, I self destruct.
Adios, goodbye, see ya later, so long and thanks for all the fish.
Life is too short to work in a job where you have to compromise whatever gives you joy.
Creativity is your most valuable asset and some company out there is not only going to recognize and encourage it, but reward it.
I'd have to say it's time for you to look for more fertile ground.
I don't want to give advice about your particular situation without knowing more about it, but -- presenting a single position to the outside and allowing internal debate aren't contradictory. When a decision is made to not do things your way, not publically undercutting the plan is professionalism, not censorship. It's when you can't question things internally that there's something badly broken.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
I really do not know how large organizations in the United States survive in the new global economy where emerging markets have businesses that aren't making themselves in the traditional molds (one might argue they aren't surviving, but I digress).
Your situation is indicative of most departments in large US organizations. "Don't rock the boat."; "Just do your work."; "We can't give *them* that info, they might look better than *us*." Those are all sentiments that are most likely not spoken, but implied in daily interactions with management. I don't believe it's due to malice. I truly belive it's managers being afraid to look "stupid" in front of others.
If you try to stand out in the crowd and continue open dialogues, collaboration and information dissemination you'll garner the support and respect of your peers, but you will not advance much beyond your current position. You stand more to lose by not speaking up (the whole department will be outsourced due to lack of productivity) than you do by being a leader (you are unlikely to get axed for attempting to make things better...lawyers would have a field day with your case).
Sadly, there is little satisfaction in IT jobs in large organizations these days. You'll need to go find a small company or derive work enjoyment from non-employment activities.
That's probably not what you wanted to hear, but unless there's a "miracle post" in this topic with a real, attainable solution, I suspect you'll get many similar replies.
Mind the gap...
Some people have claimed that is my style when I'm just trying to avoid whole projects springing up that are taking the wrong direction and doing the wrong thing. "Speaking as one person" helps make sure projects actaully meet the needs of the user community.
The user community is very sensitive to change. If one of the admins sets up something "special" for an end user, what are some of the things that can go wrong?
If one of my admins sets up a rogue FTP site "to help a user" then when I find out it's not secure and shut it down, I have to deal with dissatified end user. Then, sometimes, the admin (and the user) will turn around and call me the heavy.
But let's say I leave it up and make sure that admin secures it. Then a whole culture springs up around this FTP site when the server isn't really suitable for the purpose (no redundency, etc). These people ignore, or maybe are ignorant of our corporate HTTP file transfer site which is purpose built for five 9s of file transfer uptime. When the FTP site goes down, everybody loses. I do, my admins do, and most of all, the end-users do.
So basically, I can be a hard ass about admins running around doing their own thing. But have the admins bothered to think about why that is? I know it's a fun part of IT to play and be creative. I highly value very creative people on my staff. But at least come to management and make sure your creativity doesn't conflict with another objective. Try to understand the conflict. Use your creativity a little more to make sure your project can avoid the conflict ("hey boss, why don't we just put FTP services on the HTTP file transfer server?"). Then guess what? We're all "speaking as one voice" but you get your creativity too.
It's hard to tell, from the limited amount you're able to post here, which case applies. It may be productive to suggest a conversation with the group and management to try to clarify this, if you can figure out a non-confrontational way of suggesting that. (Just the reaction to such a suggestion might tell you quite a bit.)
The first objective is a reasonable one; perhaps it's just the approach or implementation that's ham-fisted. If you think that's the case, then perhaps you and your co-workers can come up with some ideas that will help toward the objective.
On the other hand, if this is a classic "information is power" political strategy, then you basically have to evaluate whether the good points of staying with the group you like outweigh the bad points of working for a jerk. (Do keep in mind, though, that jerks sometimes don't last -- keep your head down.)
It's a sign of things to come. Start putting feelers out for another job already. Take it from someone who has learned this the hard way...
Managers do set the tone of a company but good managers listen to their employees and are willing to discuss how things are done. I've been working for a large state agency in the US for the past nine years and for four of those years, we had a CIO who only wanted "Yes" men around him.. I bucked enough from it to not be included in that group and gained the rep of a rebel. Then we got a new CIO in who had a completely different approach and I get along great with him. He sees the value of listening to new ideas, incorporating the ones that are viable and the IT Department has been more productive because of that.
Sometimes dedication to a job means sticking with it even when you don't like what is going on. Sometimes it even turns out for the beter.
I am fine at adjusting to change. I think it is crucial to be honest about change. If change makes things worse, it is imperative to recognize and express it. Stupid cheese book doesn't mean things aren't going down the drain.
At the denver library they bought a copy for every single employee and had special "cheese moving" parties. Complete with actual cheese. To introduce draconian budget cuts. Morons.
Man, you really need that seminar!
Because that's the general time when employers start trying shit on their employees, especially in an under-unionized area like the computer-related professions are. In general it takes at least half a year for a previously (i.e. when you signed your contract) perfectly fine company's policies to swing around.