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?"

Comments

Re:You're not doomed..

[Aceticon]

I'd add the recomendation that you let it be known in circles outside your own group that:

• Decisions are wholy taken by one person without participation of the other members of the group. This also means that responsability for screwups due to those decisions fully rests with that one person
• Several members of the group (give no names) are (becoming) unsatisfied - ie moral is (becoming) low due to them not being in any way part of the decision process

The point of "spreading the word" is to prepare for the future:

• If the system being imposed in your group does not negativelly impact your group's productivity and some of the people you talked to still remember your words, then you can admit that your fears where unfounded after all. No harm done, nobody will care.
• If the system does NOT work and the productivity of your group is lower because of it (especially in comparisson with other groups), then your message will be remembered by others outside your group and quite possibly everybody in that group except the decisionmaker will be in the clear.

In this world a lot boils down to information control. Countless situations of bad leadership keep going on in perpetuity because the only source of information which those that have the power to stop those situations (higher level managers) have is the person responsible for the problem in the first place (for example, the group's manager/lead).
When confronted with the problem by someone higher in the hierarchy, the causer of the problem will commonly blame something/somebody else for it if he/she believes they can get away with it.

Thus the point of this technique is to make sure that, when the shit hits the fan, higher level decision makers get to know exactly how and why the shit got there in the first place.

When this is done really well, if indeed the decisionmaker is unqualified and/or a serial offender, it often results in said person being at the very least striped of said responsibilities, sometimes shelved and in some cases (i'm talking really incompetent here) even fired.

I've used this twice in the past to get rid of really bad managers, so i know for sure it works.

Also:

If in the meanwhile you get really frustrated with the way things are going i sugest you start looking internaly (within the company) for another group. If that doesn't work start looking outside the company.

Re:You're not doomed..

[C10H14N2]

This management style has no "soft skills." Suggestions that it is flawed are invariably met with contempt. It is not the same as someone who has simply become obsessed with micro-managing, who you can take aside and say "hey, let it go." Someone with a KITA attitude is only going to respond to this sort of tactic with, well, a KITA.

Personally, I'd just leave. I'm getting too old to put up with that crap. However, I've found the best way to ease that pain is just to accept it, deal with it and not take any of it personally--and document the living hell out of everything. If you do your job as you are told and can prove it, these types back down. They're looking for weakness and any excuse to shift blame from themselves to you. ANYTHING in the "soft skills" category with these types will be viewed as a perfect weakness to label you "not a team player" or "does not work well under supervision" or just, "does not work here anymore."

So, either leave or find a way to play by the rules... and if that means throwing back a scotch after work, so be it.

"make. people. stop. calling."

[dpilot]

When did William Shatner do a stint in the ISP business?

Re:Adios, goodbye and see ya later!

[usrbinallen]

We all have to do things at work that seem stupid to us. There are an infinite number of reasons for them. If they are temporary and not unethical, OK.

I've worked for both good and bad organizations that used the information control approach. The difference is the target.

If it's to improve something, you can usually see the point and can get around it in particular circumstances, like talking to the group next door or your direct users. You can also have discussions among youselves aimed at getting the boss to buy in and use his political skills to help out.

If the point is to stifle your voice, speak up and then leave. Go for internal transfers first. There are other groups in the company that don't like this treatment any better than you do. If the "manager" leaves, test the waters to see if you aren't going, too, but be ready to go.

Companies that don't respect their workers don't deserve our respect. In IT, we are in a far better place than auto workers and airplane mechanics. Thank your lucky stars and take advantage of it.