Can a Manager Be a Techie and Survive?

theodp writes "Some say that good managers should not be technical at all. Over at Computerworld, 'C.J. Kelly' takes a contrarian position, arguing that managers should keep their hands on the technology. The ability to tell the difference between fiction and reality, says Kelly, is priceless." From the article: "If you don't know the difference between fiction and reality, you've got a problem. By being technically informed while managing people and projects, no one can blow smoke up my skirt. I can tell the difference between a lame excuse for a delay and a legitimate reason why something can't be done." Where do you fall on this issue? Is it nice to be able to flim-flam the boss once in a while? Or is the valuable input of a boss with a technical background worth the occasional all-nighter?

Comments

Here's an example

[broothal]

I'll stand up. I have a masters in computer science. I read slashdot. I'm a manager. I'd say it helps me a lot in my daily work to have the same mindset as the developers and architects I manage. Of course, most of my guys could out-code me any day of the week. Luckily, it's not a competition. I'm glad their java-fu is better than mine. I use my background knowledge of developing to ask the right questions and find the right answers, based on their skills.

By being technically informed while managing people and projects, no one can blow smoke up my skirt. I can tell the difference between a lame excuse for a delay and a legitimate reason why something can't be done. That ability is priceless.

If your people blows smoke up your ass then you need to work on your management skills. Regardless that you can detect their lame excuses - if they feel the need to give a lame excuse then it's not only them that's doing a poor job - you are as well.

Re: a Tech Mgr or Mgr of Tech??

[shirai]

If you are managing tech and either of these describes you, you could use improvement:

You are a manager with little tech knowledge

You are a techie with little management knowledge

The problem with the tech managers you had is that they just didn't know enough about how to manage or had enough management experience. They believed that all techies are just like them. That TRAIT, is a problem. And while it may be beneficial to be managed by a non-techie, the company may suffer overall because the manager does not know how to drive his team.

I am CEO/owner of a 25 person (successful, profitable and fast growing) Internet company and my best managers are both comfortable being in a management role and are very smart in the area they manage. A good manager knows the capabilities of his/her team and also knows what they don't know and helps them learn it. Instead of resigning ourselves to be as weak as our weakest link, we teach that we need to be as strong as our strongest link and we have created a teaching and learning environment. This doesn't work if the manager doesn't understand much of the tech him/herself.

The result? Many people think our company is 2-4x as large as it actually is. We have an environment where everybody loves coming to work. There is a huge amount of respect for our managers and there is constant praise both from managers, from the teams and across team boundaries. We love our work, we work hard and in our case, our tech managers were actually all techies first but they have received guidance on how to be a good manager. I don't think a really good manager can be just either/or.

This is a philosophy I have personally taken throughout my life. I came out of business school from marketing (though most of my best marketing knowledge I learned through books), but also am a programmer (wrote most of our original code), graphic designer (owned a design co) and was CTO for another Internet company. The more I know about my business as a whole, the better I can run my company.

Definitely true on the most senior levels.

[DancesWithBlowTorch]

I don't know much about the big corporations in the States, but over here in Germany, it is actually rather common for CEOs of big technical firms (and, being Germany, most of our big companies are technology producers) to have an education in natural sciences or technology.

• The CEO of the national rail system, Hartmut Mehdorn, is a Mechanical Engineer.
• famously, Ron Sommer, the former CEO of Deutsche Telekom (think T-Mobile in the states) is a very gifted Mathematician.
• Dieter Zetsche, the CEO of Daimler Chrysler has a PhD in Engineering (hence "Dr. Z.").
• Ferdinan Piech, the head of Volkswagen, studied mechanical engineering in Zurich and is a grandson of the archetype of the German Engineer, Ferdinand Porsche (who, before anyone corrects me, was, arguably, Czech, Austrian or German).
• Speaking of which, the CEO of Porsche, Wendelin Wiedeking has a PhD in Mechanical Engineering.

The list continues for companies like the chemistry and pharma giant BASF (Jürgen Hambrecht, a chemist), SAP (all its founders, Hasso Plattner, Hans-Werner Hector, Klaus Tschira and Dietmar Hopp are either Physicists or Mathematicians), ThyssenKrupp (Ekkehard Schulz, a mining engineer), Robert Bosch Inc. (Hermann Scholl, an electrical engineer) and so on. Bear in mind we're not talking about people who directed their companies as startups like Microsoft or Apple, but CEOs of companies who already where global players before they joined (or were even born).
So, although these people probably qualify more as "leaders" than as managers, it is obviously possible to be a good techie and run a big company at the same time.