From: Michael Wiik (mwiik@messagenet.com)
Date: Wed Aug 21 2002 - 16:48:44 MDT
dehede011@aol.com wrote:
> I hope we are staying on the same page [...]
I think we are.
> However I reacted mostly to you saying that top management might
> become less reliant upon middle management to inform them of their status.
> Can you imagine what would happen if top management actually knew how
> things were going? I have knowledge of a couple of systems that do exactly
> that to one extent or another but in my experience top management seems very
> reluctant to push the issue.
My own experience in management is limited to occasionally leading a
project. I don't have the mindset for it. If someone asked me for the
afternoon off so he or she could let some ideas percolate I'd say sure
no problem, take tomorrow off too if you want. I'd be ecstatic if I
could get my staff to do four solid hours of work a day. As opposed to
eight or more hours interrupted by phone calls and meetings every 15
minutes.
My experience is mostly in computer programming, so I may have a
different perspective. In my case the 'floor' would be the 'geek layer'.
Imho, in such an environment the CEO wouldn't need to push the issue at
all, the geeks would be only too happy to educate the executives and
keep them informed in as fine-grain a manner as the executives can
possibly handle.
I have worked for managers who knew how to code and rose thru the ranks
to management and also managers who got an MBA or something and were
'people' managers. I always got along much much better with the first
type. In both situations the managers have on occasion been sent away on
sales calls. If the manager was a 'people' person this was often a great
relief. It's like that Dilbert strip where they get a false rumor the
PHB is dead; even Wally finds he enjoys work.
Technical managers know what programmers need to know. Programmers need
to know how their stuff will interface with other coders stuff. They
need to know what data they will get and what is expected as output. If
this can be defined exactly, the task is half done. If this is presented
in a handwaving manner by the typical non-technical manager, the geeks
have to evolve the interfaces on their own and you end up with a system
with so many internal crossties it becomes very difficult to maintain.
I'm also informed on this by the ask slashdot column, 'What Kind of PHB
Do You Want?' at:
http://messagenet.com/fw/f1168.html
aka
http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/02/06/208234&mode=thread&tid=99À
I would like to hear your experiences about what happens when 'top
management actually knew how things were going'.
Thanks,
-Mike
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