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RE: What's a Good Manager

ken.trock — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 14:43:33 GMT

Great article! I know this post has been there out there awhile. It's Interesting to see what the careers of others in this field are and the managers they've worked under. Apparently Janet's had some pretty crummy ones! But leave fantasy football out of it :DKen

RE: What's a Good Manager

timothyawiseman — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 13:00:38 GMT

I think the biggest issue is the IT culture in general. I come from a military background, and there was tremendous emphasis on developing your subordinates for 3 reasons:1. You knew many of them would be in the military with you for many years to come. Even if they were not with you in that assignment for long you would likely encounter them again, so their ability to do their job would impact you for a long time to come.2. Developing your subordinates was a major part of your evaluation because the military assumed that it would have that soldier for years if not decades.3. You knew their performance could directly affect whether you came back in one piece.But in most civilian jobs none of those are true. Especially in the ecosystem where I work in IT, it is very common for good employees to leave after one or two years, this makes the ROI for training much lower from the corporate standpoint and the standpoint of the individual manager. If employees could be expected to stay longer the company would see more benefit in developing individual employees rather than just replacing them with someone else who already had the experience. If the company emphasized that and it impacted IT managers salaries/bonuses/promotion potential then you would see a lot more managers paying attention to development.As it is now, a smart person in the IT field would learn to learn on their own regardless of how much or how little management support there was for it.

RE: What's a Good Manager

Simon E Doubt — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 07:05:35 GMT

An excellent article. I liked the points about trust and respect, as being the cornerstones to a good relationship between manager and employee. I also think that humility is a good character trait for managers. When a manager thinks that he or she has to be infallible to present the right image, it causes trouble. A good manager should realize that they might not always be the ones with the right answers, and listen to differing opinions from their employees, which leads back to trust and respect...

RE: What's a Good Manager

John Magnabosco — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 04:42:39 GMT

I think you nailed it on the head when you added the phrase "for the long term". Not too many people work based upon long term goals (5 years +) which affects a person's management approach and investment in developing their staff. In this day and age it is very hard to think long term when you have the potential of being laid-off at any time. This definately affects one's investment in their company/staff and sets one on the self-preservation mode.

RE: What''s a Good Manager

John Gephart-338552 — Tue, 01 May 2007 14:25:00 GMT

Spudmasher, I'm a bit of a student of managing people. Having gone to the US Naval Academy, I received excellent leadership training (which does not imply that I'm an excellent leader...in fact, I prefer the tech side of the business because management is 'hard' . Having spent over 15 years in the tech industry, I have observed corporate management in many different environments. I would submit that being an exceptional manager in the corporate world requires two vary disparate skill sets. I've met many managers that have a natural ability in one or the other, but very few people are good at both.

Administration is an important part of management. The ability to 'move the machine' is a big part of the job, whether you are removing obstacles, arguing for part of the merit pool to reward your people or merely ordering equipment and other resources. I've had good administrative managers who made sure I had what I needed to get the job done & made sure that my team was fully supported by the company. Often, they were so busy with the administrative tasks that they spent little time building a relationship with their team. Employees were committed to the company & to their own efforts, but were not particularly invested in their manager or the team.

Leadership is a different animal. The ability to inspire your employees to be passionate about what they do, the ability to encourage them in growing their skills and the ability to create an environment that is high energy & 'fun' does not ensure that you are good at administration. I've worked on teams that had good 'leaders', including a few that the team would 'walk through fire' for. One in particular was proud of our accomplishments and we were extremely loyal to the manager, often putting in extra effort to support him & the team. We often joked that our job was to 'make him look good' (which I actually believe is every employees job...to make their manager/team/company 'look good' to the best of their ability). Unfortunately, many team members were not very happy with the company. The team tended to have an 'us against the world' attitude due to decisions made by the company that were not supportive of our team. Our manager was not particularly adept at administration and therefore, was not taken seriously by upper management. I often wish I could have taken this manager with me when I left.

I recently worked for a manager who was good at removing obstacles & getting whatever support the team needed. He was also committed to generating enthusiasm and worked hard at developing a high energy, 'fun' atmosphere. He hired for 'team fit' and energy/commitment, assuming that you could 'teach' software development, but team chemistry was an art. My only complaint about him is that he had '6 years of sw development experience' in one discipline and felt that all sw problems were essentially the same & could be solved the same way, with the same toolset. His insistence on estimating every project as if it had the same technical challenges, the same set of development skills available & the same burn rate regardless of the number of developers (& their corresponding skill levels) assigned created a lot of expectations that were impossible to meet. It was one of the most enjoyable/frustrating experiences of my career.

I agree that someone with a technical background will tend to do a better job managing technical teams (though not always). I believe that both administrative & leadership skills can be taught/developed. As a new manager, I would encourage you to assess your skills and determine which skill set you currently favor & focus on training/developing the other set of skills...(here comes the hard part)...without neglecting your areas of strength. I would also encourage you to realize that managers are just people and we all have our good days & bad days. Good managers can have bad days or make bad decisions & occassionally, much as it might pain us to admit it, bad managers can actually 'get it right' sometimes. Don't be too hard on yourself when you make mistakes, especially if you happen to get flack from above when you make them. I'm pulling for you to become one of the 'good managers'! I would love to believe that someday there will be an opportunity to work for another manager who is committed to both skill sets...especially when most companies favor the administrative skills, because they tend to have a greater short term impact. Best of luck on your new adventure!

RE: What''s a Good Manager

Spudmasher — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 18:29:00 GMT

Great article - I've just moved into a management position myself after being outsourced in my company for over a year as a senior developer/analyst.Totally respect the piece about being responsible for someones career. The team I've come back to manage have been working on the same application for several years, averaging around 5. The application hasnt been updated to any new technology or processes - the team just plod along while the rest of the company move through to new and "exciting" pieces. Needless to say I'm quite appalled at this and have undertaken an initative to develop their skills through in-house throw-away projects (now funded under training!) during any quiet time, just to be able to learn the new technology and applying it to something rather than exercises from a book. Also during team meetings we get a chance to develop our soft skills - like presentations (about anything), open discussions, time management and so on.Careers are too short and life is even shorter to let it tick away.

RE: What''s a Good Manager

Jeff Geer — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 11:24:00 GMT

The article ends with a note about trust and respect, which are essential for companies that want to move forward.

A good summary of this idea is found in the book 'Heroic Environment'.

I'm not sure how many developers work for companies that hold these values highly, but would be interested to know if they exist...

RE: What''s a Good Manager

T Y MA — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 09:54:00 GMT

I believe the good manager is the person who can understand what is your capibility, but not your past project experience. He listen your feedback and complient but does not really need to do any reaction. He doesn't need to know much about the technical detail, as long as he knows how to put his resource (people) in right position.

I once had such excellent manager.

RE: What''s a Good Manager

colin.Leversuch-Roberts — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 09:24:00 GMT

just remember that you too will be "old" one day, although in the case of some mangers this may come from luck rahter than anything else < grin >

RE: What''s a Good Manager

Stephen Hirsch — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 03:43:00 GMT

Management is parenting people you don't love, who are frequently older than you are.It's not easy.

RE: What''s a Good Manager

Tony Edwards — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 14:37:00 GMT

Excellent observations!

My value add? ... Good managers DO NOT need to be past technical experts! Some of my best managers (in my technical life) have been non-tech backgrounds. They knew how to mange and lead. Emphasis here is on both MANAGE and LEAD. Technical attributes are a 'nice to have'.

Over the years, I too have worked for a broad range of managers, and like most others, walked ASAP if things were bad and did not improve. Many companies and departments do not have the mechanisms in place to notice these sort of trends as they only care about short term results, and not notice how they got them. It is not intentional, it is just the way their management practices are set up.

My one note of value here is that the best places I have worked at, invested and supported leadership training. The places that did not, well I have a fovourite comment from a co-worker many years ago that these places "are like cess pools, where all the $#!& floats to the top" unchecked.

Good management characteristics? Honesty, positive cameraderie, integrity, and professionalism.

RE: What''s a Good Manager

Bill Richards-377350 — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 13:42:00 GMT

Good Article. We all have good and bad managers. I think what is most important is how to communicate with co-workers and managers and deal with various situations as they come up. A book I would recommend is "How to Say it at work" by Jack Griffin. In this book, the author communicates ways to deal with different types or management styles, words and phrases to use with co-workers, and how to use the correct verbiage to get your point across effectively.

In my experience, the way I communicate to my co-workers has helped my career greatly.

RE: What''s a Good Manager

Sean Law-383356 — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 13:28:00 GMT

I disagree about managers being your friend. I am not looking for my manager to be my friend but if we communicate well then there is the potential for a friendship to foster. Good managers know how to communicate well with their employees. They let their employees know that they are all in the same boat and the manager is there to help them and remove hurdles. Honestly, in my experience my good managers were people I would run through walls for because I valued them as a manager, mentor and friend. Just my take.

I think the manager is not my friend comment is a co out statement.

RE: What''s a Good Manager

colin.Leversuch-Roberts — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 13:19:00 GMT

new it would get into a saga of worst managers I have known .. As a manager it can be very difficult to get rid of poor staff ( who usually think they are great ) A good manager is unlikely to be your friend as are "nice" people likely to be most successful in business. There is a requirement to try to keep a distance perhaps, this is why people promoted from within a team to manage a team often don't actually do as well as if they had taken the role in a new company.

Knowing where you stand and honesty are very important .. oh I could go on and on.. post about the subject matter not your saga of good and bad, much more interesting

RE: What''s a Good Manager

Rich Bartho — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 12:59:00 GMT

I just recently left my job due to what I felt was a poor manager. When I came into the company, I believed very much in the idea that respect and trust should be given initially to a manager and that I had to earn that respect & trust from my superiors. And within 6 months, I really think I did that and often got praise from executives and other managers in different departments (thus making my manager and the director of our IT dept look good).

But another 6 months later, I started to lose respect and trust for my manager. Without going into details, it progressively got worse and in the end I left because I could no longer respect this manager (I didn't really get more money when I left either FWIW). So I agree with the assessment that trust & respect is the key to a good manager. I often worked directly with the director of the department and because of the trust/respect we had developed, there wasn't a thing I wouldn't do for him and the likewise was true (he even offered to pay for certification classes).

Before I left, I spoke to the director quite candidly about this manager. He knew my issues with that manager because of past situations that was brought to his attention by both myself and that manager. But the one thing I did say was that manager needed to take some management classes. He needed to learn not only how to manage a project but really to manage the people he has. I doubt my suggestion will matter but I had to say it because I believed in the company and the director. I also agree with whoever mentioned it but a review of management by their employees is also just as healthy as a yearly review by your manager. It gives both sides some feedback for things to continue doing well, improve in areas and other concerns that need to be voiced. If that company had that, I may still be there.

RE: What''s a Good Manager

Sean Law-383356 — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 12:38:00 GMT

That is a great cliché but it doesn't really address the bad management that can exist in a company. Every great company has bad managers but how long they are allowed to remain in the same position I bet varies. Good companies identify bad managers and work with them to improve. If they don't improve then they get fired. Companies that are reluctant to fire employees yet allow those employees to get complacent will not be as productive and profitable long-term. Companies need to listen to their employees about everything. Yes, you will have complainers but if a company can analyze sales minute by minute then they can analyze their employment structure. Most people want to make a difference in the place they work. Employers need to realize this and listen to their most valuable asset.

Just a note. The company I left had no way to rate a manager from the people that report to them. So there is no way to really identify and reward the good ones or identify and educate the bad ones. This company does a lot of things right however, without a way to identify good management from bad they will suffer in years to come.

RE: What''s a Good Manager

Matt-395797 — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 12:38:00 GMT

Either way the money lost in recruiting and training them is gone.

I agree. Many times in negotiating salary with a potential employer, the HR people and the Manager do not consider these costs.

A couple of months ago, I was offered a position with a company. When I received the call from HR with the verbal offer, I attempted to negotiate $2500 higher than their initial offer. They did not want to budge even though they were only offering me $2500 more than I was making at my present position. I decided to send an e-mail to the hiring manager stating that if they hired me, the company would save considerable training costs since I already had all of the skills they were seeking for the position. They still didn't want to budge (no reply). I can guarantee you that the person they hired needed at least $5,000 in training for one of the skills required for the job (which is rare in the current market). I realize that the training budget and salary budget are handled separately in most companies, but they weren't even offering the current market rate for my position.

I think there should be a new thread on IT hiring practices. I could tell you a lot of strange stories from both ends of the process.

RE: What''s a Good Manager

Conrad Muller — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 12:22:00 GMT

Good management starts at the top. When a CEO who earns as much as 100 of his developers spends his days at the golf course, and lets his "Executive Assistant" run the company, everyone in the next level down gets the message that the company isn't important, and passes the message along to the next level, etc.

RE: What''s a Good Manager

Mark Rucker — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 12:18:00 GMT

Amen, brother....

RE: What''s a Good Manager

Sean Law-383356 — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 12:08:00 GMT

I agree that this is a lot of rehashing things but seriously you cannot truly measure a bad managers impact. It is too far reaching to be accurately calculated.

There is the effect of turnover because of poor management. I can tell you a fact that I was on a team of 15 people. In a year and a half that team lost 8 people out of that 15. (Five externally, One internally, two internally promoted to other teams) the result is that you have a turn over rate of about 35% with promotions and 24% without. The tenure of the people who left varied from 3 months to 12 years so it was across the board. Either way the money lost in recruiting and training them is gone.

There is also the loss of talent and business knowledge when a bad manager results in people leaving a company. As people leave so does the information they have to do their job well on a day in and day out. Then there is the measure of immediate productivity and the long-term productivity by not developing good candidates. There is also the bad will that gets created in the market place how a team or position is not desirable because of this boss. That in turn reduces your applicant pool, which in turn reduces the quality of that pool.

Bad management can be measured immediately in time lost and money however I believe the real loss is the long-term loss of people and knowledge. That is truly immeasurable.

RE: What''s a Good Manager

Stephanie J Brown — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 11:46:00 GMT

Janet, an excellent article that lets us compare our own experiences with yours, and come to our own conclusions about good management versus poor management. I've seen a bit of both in my career, and I must say there's been quite a bit of good correspondence on this thread.

I agree that yelling at an employee is never productive, yet that's how many managers were trained (and so trained others). It's also how many parents were trained, and thus train their children, so that "quality" can come from somewhere other than a managment training class!

I'm putting my vote on the side of building trust and respect between employees and managers, and it IS a two-way street. The company I work at holds classes for all new employees on "influencing skills" - a fancy name for teaching people to communicate with each other in a respectful manner. Some employees complain that it is "silly", but having gone thru a stressful two years, I can tell you it is one of the major reasons I still work for this company. After all, how many develoopers can say that when a VP accused them of being the "problem" when a client is unhappy, they were able to respond with the reasons why they were NOT the problem, and where the client service deterioration came into play? And still have their job, and the respect of that VP, the client managers, and their co-workers?

Respect is critical, and it builds trust. Communication is what lets you know it exists. If you've got a manager that doesn't practice these things, or who won't allow discussion (training) on how to reach a higher plane of teamwork, I'd say it's time to look for a new manager. There's just too much good information out there on how to manage effectively - and no excuses for managing poorly. But the same is true from the employee side - if you're not putting out 100% on the job, you're not respecting the company, your manager, or the people you work with. That's when it all lands in YOUR lap, and you need to decide whether it's time to change your attitude, or change your employer, because you're not doing anyone any favors at that point.

RE: What''s a Good Manager

G Bryant McClellan — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 11:13:00 GMT

I think is says a lot when the manager realizes his limitations and accepts them, gracefully, with his entire group. My manager will repeat, cheerfully, to anybody that asks that he hasn't programmed in 9 years and isn't about to start again now. But he stays abreast of technology and has spent enough time with the business to understand what is of value and what is not.More importantly, he encourages those who work for him to explore technologies AND asks for and respects their opinions, and typically adopts them as the way things should go when presented to his superiors or our customers.We could make a lot more and work in a better climate and have better perks and a whole litany of other things, but none of us will ever have a boss this good again. Oh, and a little encouragement to him goes a long way. We let him know directly how we feel and how we appreciate his support, be it a project or a personal issue.While a lot of managers shouldn't be one, we should also consider that some of us could be better employees, and what better way to do so that to let the good boss know you appreciate him...and not just on Boss' day.

RE: What''s a Good Manager

Rod at work — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 10:40:00 GMT

A good article, Janet! I've had bad managers, and good managers. I realize that I probably haven't has managers as bad as your ugly managers.

One comment; I think the influences that make for bad managers are hard to define. Yes, I agree that it does involved trust and respect, but I've a feeling that there is more. I've worked for a company in which some developers were offered management positions and they tried it for a while. However, they found that it was a no-win situation for them. They were encouraged to take up more responsibility than they were capable of, and punished because they couldn't complete all of the tasks in timeframe that they were given. Because of this they went back to being developers. I don't really know why things like that happened (it happened to them before I joined the company) but something odd is happening. I only hope that this is either an isolated incident or one that rarely occurs.

RE: What''s a Good Manager

DittoToo — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 09:52:00 GMT

Employee investment is a two way street. You can't expect your employees to invest in you if you are not willing to invest in them. If you are not willing to invest in your employees you are better off sticking to contractors.

RE: What''s a Good Manager

Gregg Murray — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 09:32:00 GMT

This article is nothing more than a re-hashing of old nostalgic experiences and personal grudges. Where is the analysis, where is the insight? What can we walk away with except that a bad manager is defined as someone who fires your friends and makes you follow rediculous rules, or is abusive?

A good article provides insight and wisdom, not horror stories and nostalga.

RE: What''s a Good Manager

Matt-395797 — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 09:11:00 GMT

Unfortunately, a lot of managers get into their positions through seniority. These people are usually not provided with any management training and when they were promoted, no one thought to consider their people skills before giving them the position. These promotions are often considered "rewards" for people who been with the company for a number of years.

Some of these stories are very familiar. At my last job, the CTO was my boss. Not only did this guy not have a technical background, he was a micro manager and did not allow people in the IT department to make any decisions on their own. One example involved the use of PDA's with e-mail accounts. The mail servers were configured to allow POP3 connections for anyone with a mailbox on the system, but the CTO decided that he wanted each user to submit a request to use his/her PDA with the corporate e-mail system and then have them wait for an official approval (this process could take many days). He was not very responsive to these or any other requests. Not only did this create a lot of work for the IT staff, it was unnecessary and most of the time the IT staff would just give out the POP3 address and send the users a link to the PDA provider's support page. This was done to save the user a lot of time and frustration.

There were many other tedious processes this guy created in order to micro-manage the entire department. I may have forgotten to mention that the CTO was a secondary role for this guy as he was performing project management for the company's line of business (healthcare consulting). The company needed to have a CTO on staff and they picked this guy because he knew the most IT lingo. I should also note that this gentleman works 80+ hours per week (mainly due to the micro-management tasks and telephone calls). In addition to the above, he was often verbally abusive to the IT staff and blamed others for his mistakes. He hardly ever documented anything via e-mail as he liked to verbally give all of his directives and assignments from a cellphone. Later, I suspected he did this to protect himself as he often made mistakes and forgot things he had told to people (the blame was placed elsewhere). When I gave my 2 weeks notice, he begged me to stay. After I refused a couple of counteroffers, he called the HR department and told them that I was a bad employee and he was eager for me to leave. He was doing some "damage control" since he knew I would inform HR of the problems in the department upon my departure (exit interview). Since our HR department was very new, they bought into his lies and deception. Several employees left the company because of this guy and the senior management staff knew why it was happening. They seemed to stick to a "don't ask, don't tell" policy because the guy delivered results.

I am very glad I left and have never looked back.

RE: What''s a Good Manager

Grant Fritchey — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 08:11:00 GMT

I'm not sure I agree on this one. My manager came out of sales & has few technical skills but he's doing a pretty good job managing the team. His issues were HUGE about five years ago because he didn't know who to trust on the team for technical advice and therefore trusted everyone. He finally learned who was consistently right, level-headed and had the company's interests in mind and now, when he needs to make a decision based on technology, goes to the right people first.

On the other hand, I had a manager who was very technical and felt the need to question every decision, in detail. It really can swing both ways.

RE: What''s a Good Manager

David Ferreira-381627 — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 07:51:00 GMT

Oh, come on. There is little difference between the first and last manager - both border if not cross over into verbal abuse. Flat out, there is no reason EVER for a manager to yell at an employee, and if that is incorporated into their particular management "styles" then you are working for a bad manager. End of story no matter how many times the manager apologizes afterwards.

And the part about a good manager "guiding careers?" My God, are you a professional or a child? An effective manager is one who anticipates the needs of his staff in getting the job done, and paves the way for the need to be met BEFORE the employee is held up by this. A good manager LISTENS to his employees and helps them play to their strengths even when it might be at cross purposes to their spoken desires. In short, an excellent manager gives the employee the path to succeed rather than setting them up to fail.

Recognizing and rewarding accomplishment is an absolute necessity. The learning Oracle example highlights this. Every manager should know the market they are in, and that manager SHOULD have known CICS programmers were readily available. At that point, you look at your staff and decide who has earned the privilege of learning new (and marketable) job skills on the company dime. You reward the staff member with the new, plum assignment and backfill their job, even if it is a mission-critical role. That is, unless you take the approach by so many managers and companies these days, and assume that employees are like buses - another one comes along every 30 minutes.

Finally, the old chestnut about a manager not really needing technical skills is a load. While the manager might not need to be as technically inclined as his staff, he needs to understand the business at that level. You can't take a sales manager and make him the supervisor of a group of developers just because he has people skills. Let's face facts here - at the best of times, IT lifers have more personality quirks than your average employee, and knowing how the employee works - of which the technical aspect is one of the most key elements - is how a manager succeeds.

I am sorry, I don't mean to be so hyper-critical, but having been on all sides of this particular table it is a subject I am VERY passionate about. I once worked for a man who got in the deep brush with me and helped me clear the path - and then stood in the background while I got the credit for a job well done. If I screwed up, he stood between me and the user and took the heat. If I tried to snow him on a tech issue, he called me on it because he knew what I did, not just what our department's mission was. And when I found a new way of doing something that saved ANYTHING, he rewarded the effort. Although he had as much ego as anyone else, he knew how to succeed, and that meant helping his people to succeed in any way possible. After a few years managing the group, the powers that be tapped him to become the youngest VP in company history. Because they, too, recognized how important the individual successes on a team are.

More than anything else I have learned in my career, I have held on to this. Success comes double when you create the environment for your staff to shine. A manager is part counselor, mediator and facilitator, not a traffic cop.

RE: What''s a Good Manager

Sean Law-383356 — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 07:42:00 GMT

My "Bad Manager" experience was a true learning experience in my career. He had his own philosophy on teaching us his management techniques. Just a couple of tibits into his style -

He would regularly show up late 10 - 15 minutes late for meetings and then make us rehash everything we had been discussing for the previous 10 minutes. When I thought this was just his way I found out he told someone this was a way to convey power.

Next, His advice to a coworker during a review was to speak over people and be cockier. His belief was being cocky was the way to be promoted.

Also, he told a coworker who was having personnel life issues that he could be having back problems like another coworker. The personnel issues were very serious and his words were not the calming influence one needs to hear.

And lastly, if he did "buy" a treat for the team he would get the day old doughnuts with the 50% off sticker.

I could go on and on but why bother. He did teach me a valuable lesson. Do not accept a bad manager who doesn't care about his people.

RE: What''s a Good Manager

Martin Bastable — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 07:23:00 GMT

"I see that the number of bad managers has been increasing in recent years. Is this my imagination or has there been a change for the worse?"

In my experience, its not necessarily that someones technical skill (no matter how good their people skills are) lets them down as a manager - I used to have an amazing manager, lacking in technical skills but had no problem in coming and asking for technical assistance - I think a huge problem is that they have no skills in the problem domain of what they are managing.

While having great people management skills might make up for some this, it leaves them with no understanding of what they are managing, most of their input is superficial and made up for by those working for them when the details matter, and they arent able to have decent long term strategies in place that really work.

It seems that more and more, gone is the day when someone worked their way up the ladder, years of experience under their belt, (if capable) eventually rising management level. I see many managers these days who are managers because of the management training course they did, or because they have been managers somewhere else (after doing a training course) - maybe managing a completely different problem domain.

With the increase in managers who don't really know what they are managing, Ive also witnessed an increase in those sorts of managers hiring more of `themselves`. Then you get into a loop! Bad managers hiring more bad managers.

This hierarchy of bad management also means upper (bad) managment cant spot problems with lower management - they dont have the skill set to recognise whats going on. Maybe a reason why some departments completely fail?

There is also my favorite, which fits in with the above. The manager who doesnt have the technical skills, or the domain skills, but THINKS they do, and tries to `correct` their staff members who know what they are doing inside out.

Martin (who has had to work with managers along these lines a fair few times)

RE: What''s a Good Manager

sane0t0 — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 06:50:00 GMT

This topic is very interesting. I have researched qualities of effective leaders/CEOs/CIOs.I found one article that sums it up in 3 points (http://www.leadertoleader.org/knowledgecenter/L2L/spring98/pfeffer.html):- Build trust- Encourage change- Use effective measures of performance.I think that these 3 points are simple, yet very powerful. If a manager uses these points to manager and lead their team, they will be respected. I believe that it will remove the need to yell, or put down, or do anything else that is detrimental for the team and company.I also discovered the "Toyota Way" of leadership and innovation. I think that the overall idea of promoting change at Toyota is the main reason why they build cars so well. They are focused on continuously improving their processes.If you are interested in finding out more about the "Toyota Way", read this article:http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/111/open_no-satisfaction.htmlIt really hit me that my interests in Unit testing and continuous software integration are aligned with what they are always trying to accomplish at Toyota: continuous improvement. I am sure that there are management issues in certain groups at Toyota, but their overall vision and execution is impressive.

RE: What''s a Good Manager

SQL Analyst — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 06:23:00 GMT

A great article. There is quite a lot in it that I recognised & which ultimately led to me stepping down from a management post to going back and being a techie.

I simply couldn't put up with the management bs whilst trying to look after the welfare of my team. The last straw came for me when my manager found out that I had encouraged a staff member to resign and go back to university. The member of staff was clearly unhappy in her job and although we tried a few things it was pretty clear that she was in the wrong career and was very unhappy to boot. The two of us sat down together and talked things out with the result that I encouraged her to go back to university and go down a different career path. She graduated with honours from her masters programme and is very happy in her new position. We meet frequently for lunch and she is like a different person now.

When my management team found out boy did I get a right rollocking from then as they viewed the staff member to be one of their most valuable. So ultimately her happiness ment nothing to them and only productivity counted (even though she went about her work with little enthusiasm or cheer).

Since I've been back as a techie I've experienced both good & bad management, but now I concentrate on the job & when bad management comes my way I know enough to manipulate the situation and work arround the problem.

RE: What''s a Good Manager

Andy Warren — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 06:20:00 GMT

It's not easy to be a good manager OR a good employee, both take experience and feedback. The most effective feedback comes from a mentor if you can find one, someone that will give it to you straight and that you know you don't have to filter what they are telling you. Experience, well, it's painful for the learner and the learnee:-)

RE: What''s a Good Manager

Grant Fritchey — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 06:14:00 GMT

Good article. Interesting points. I've been at both extremes of the scale at large & small companies. Heck, I even went through the management change at a large company where the good manager was replaced with the demon manager from hell (who, by the way, when I quit, told me that if she ever had the chance to prevent my getting a job or could fire me in the future, she would, lovely person).

I don't know that I agree that things are getting worse & worse as far as management goes. My worst managers are in the past & most of my most recent managers are good people trying to do a good job. The thing is, just as I screw up occasionally on a database design or a process or a new query, my managers have made some seriously questionable decisions. As hard as it is to do, I've tried to take the attitude that they're trying to do as good a job as I am until and unless evidence to the contrary surfaces. That attitude has served me well because I've been able to develop more communication with my managers saying "Hey, I think you really balled up this call and here's why." Even if they don't agree with me, I can at least get their reasoning which, surprisingly, frequently makes sense.

As far as people being trained as managers... While Phil is right, no one is born to code or to manage, there are inherent predilictions that make people better at one job than another. I know that I stink at management but I'm at least capable as a coder. So I try to play to my strengths and avoid management. On the other hand, I've got a co-worker who's a great coder, but he's also a natural as a manager. Despite the fact that he's younger & less experienced than I am, I know I'm going to watch him climb the corporate ladder like a monkey. Not only am I OK with it, I'm encouraging & helping him because he's going to be the kind of manager all of us want to work for.

RE: What''s a Good Manager

colin.Leversuch-Roberts — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 06:08:00 GMT

actually I have seen ( been part of ) some good team training at work ( I'm not actually convinced it produced the desired effect, however and I've carefully kept the details just in case!

Communication is always the key, something which is sometimes seen as bad - hence the IT silo approach. I'm not sure about talking to managers about team skills , especially if it can be taken as criticism, I sometimes think employees , as against contractors/freelancers, are much more constrained - worries about pension, holidays, propects, appraisals, bonus etc. etc.

Whilst I might agree team/management skills can be easily defined and taught, learning and /or adopting them is another matter.

RE: What''s a Good Manager

Phil Factor — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 05:40:00 GMT

I really enjoyed reading this article. It is full of good ideas.

One point I'd like to emphasise is that the 'team' management skills are easy to define and train. They are quite different from technical skills in their nature but, just as nobody is born with programming skills, so it is with the skills to manage a team. What always puzzles me is that people are prepared to take on a management role without any training, experience, or backgroung reading, whereas most of us would feel shame and guilt about taking on a technical IT role without training or experience.

The other point which comes out strongly from this article is that we should be absolutely frank with our managers about what we think of their 'team' skills, and assist them as much as we can to improve their skills. Good teams tend to get good managers. Maybe we all need training in 'Team' skills.

RE: What''s a Good Manager

colin.Leversuch-Roberts — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 04:13:00 GMT

I think we probably all have good and bad experiences throughout our working lives. The view of a good manager is subjective, those working for a manager will have one and those for whom the manger works another, it is very unlikely there will be much common ground between the two.

Probably the company ethos will be the main influence, management by fear is a common factor in many corporates as is the ability to pass the buck efficiently. The ability to play the internal politics game is quite crucial and this may or may not be obvious to those who are managed.

I have never worked in a job I don't like and having had fairly extensive management training and experience I can see from both sides, sometimes, as I don't like the politics and pc stuff which can impair efficient management I choose not to these days and work for my own company.

Interesting article which is probably going to spawn a series of "my experience was worse than yours" or "bad managers I have known" which will detract from any serious discussion.

RE: What''s a Good Manager

Cédrick B. — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 03:35:00 GMT

Hi,

First Post for me!

Well, my point is that article is very good.

I started to work about 3 years ago... and I could see what this article describes. I saw very bad managers who yell at me for any reasons... and good manager too.

I manage a 4-7 people team, and I try to do as good as I can. I don't try to be a good manager, I try to be myself. I respect the people I work with, and even if we haven't the same tasks, we are a team so we help each other, and I try that everyone enjoy working like that...

It's just respect between peoples... if you respect the other, then they'll respect you.

I know I hadn't a consistent experience in management... and my feedback would probably change in the futur, but i think I'm close to the reality....

Any feedback is welcome! :-)

Regards

CedrickB. - FRANCE

RE: What''s a Good Manager

Minaz — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 02:50:00 GMT

Hi,

A very good article.

My points :

>> I think all the company small or Big should have a manager feedback form which should filled up the employees once in every 3 months.

>> This form should be checked by the CEO or the Chairperson of that company.

>> Depending on the feedback even managers appraisal should be effected.

This way the organization will be transparent to everyone.

Regards,

Minaz Amin

RE: What''s a Good Manager

Sean Fackrell — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 02:04:00 GMT

A very good article. The part about trust and respect is very true.

Not enough feedback about management is processed thoroughly both during and after an employee's tenure. And even when it is processed, it can be misconstrued as sour grapes.

Companies pay a lot of money to recruit employees and they don't seem to be able to equate this against the cost of having good managers in place that will prolong the life of the employees that they manage.

Managers should be continually assessed through an appraisal system and special attention should be paid to what their subordinates have to say about them.