A large part of survival in the High-Tech workplace is dealing with management. With its emphasis on advanced technology, High-Tech often tends to promote those most technically skilled and knowledgeable to management positions, even though management requires entirely different skills.
A long career in High Tech has convinced me that good management is hard to find. Why? If nothing else, there is an immense number of books on management out there, from faddish to solid and intelligent. But I've always felt that good managers don't need to read the books but will, and the poor ones need to read them but won't.
One would think that it's not that hard to be a good manager. All it takes is some common sense, some listening ability, some of being able to put oneself in the employee's place, some control of personal ego, and it's hard to avoid being a good manager.
On the other hand, below are a number of ways not to be one, illustrated by examples from my own experiences in High-Tech. Personal examples are more vivid than abstractions, and they're more therapeutic too. The principals remain unnamed, although they might recognize themselves in the situations described.
Play favorites
Every manager has favorites, and is entitled to them. These are the people that have high technical ability, that deliver work on time and on budget, that are honest and open; in short, these are the people to trust and to rely on. The problem is with favorites that, in the manager's eyes, can do no wrong, while the rest of the group can do no right.
In one group of which I was a member, Roy was the manager's golden boy; no one else could do anything properly. Roy met the customers, Roy did the important work, and the rest of us languished in poor morale. Roy was a quiet sort, kept his cards close to his vest, and didn't interact too closely with the rest of the group. One fine day Roy decided to leave to go to another job, and the manager was left with a non-functional group.
In another group, another company, the engineering manager had a very bright engineer who could do no wrong. The engineer also made sure that he dominated every technical area by writing papers on each one to become, with the manager's sanction, the resident expert-in-everything. It caused some resentment, and others took less ownership than they otherwise might have because their contributions were devalued by comparison, or not listened to. The manager kept wondering why his favorite was overburdened.
As so often happens, people respond with humor. The engineer, Edward Prye (changed to protect ... ), became known as His Royal Pryeness, King Edward; I composed new words to a well-known tune:
EiE (Expert in Everything)
Old "Group Leader" had a group,
EiE, uh-oh,
And in this group he had an expert,
EiE, uh-oh,
The expert's here, the expert's there,
Here, there, EVERYWHERE,
Old "Group Leader" had one expert,
EiE, uh-oh.
Turn a positive into a negative
Here the manager has the opportunity to make the employee feel good by presenting a deserved reward or recognition in a timely way, but does not act and, by delaying, instead focuses resentment and anger on himself. I have three personal examples:
It was the early days of industrial machine vision: new company, new software, new hardware. Nothing worked, and if it did, it was only for a short time before crashing. We promised a GM pressed metal plant in Flint that we could perform a particular inspection task. As the lead engineer on the application, I spent a lot of time at the Flint plant, working with our flaky system, but fortunately also developed a personal as well as technical relationship with the receiving customer Finally, I went out to Flint again to perform the acceptance test, and the equipment passed. I phoned the good news back to our company, and while I was on the plane back home, the company celebrated with some special bottles of wine that the head honchos had held for the occasion. They couldn't wait until I got back to participate. Next day, my manager gave me what was left in one bottle. I can't say that it tasted as good as it should have.
In another small company, I had been doing a very good job and was scheduled for an annual review and a salary increase. That's usually an opportunity to give a good performer a strong pat on the back, with good words and a solid increase. Nothing happened. After nine weeks, I walked into the office and asked that we forget about the review, but that I would like the salary increase to be retro-active. It turned out that I received a 6% increase while another engineer who generally came late and left early got 4%. There never was a review.
In yet another company, I had done some innovative vision development, and was asked to write a description of it for a patent attorney. It turned into a full-scale patent application, which I wrote and on which I corresponded with the attorney. For an entire week, I worked on the application, with the group leader was listed as the sole inventor, and the attorney's question just below as to whether anyone else should be listed a co-inventor. Finally, after I asked directly, I and another engineer were added as co-inventors. How different it would have been to hear right at the beginning "you had a great idea, so we're going ahead with a patent to recognize it". I'll add that a few months before when I first made the discovery, I mentioned that this could be patentable and got minimal response.
Updated April 4, 2004: That patent actually was granted, about two-and-a-half years after submission. I learned about it from a firm trying to sell plaques and other such memorabilia. Nothing from the company, nothing from the group or its leaders. Since I had retired from that workplace, I guess there was nothing to be gained from a "thank you".
Lead by bad example
This can also be described as "do what I say, not what I do", or an unintended invitation not to take seriously what the manager is saying or doing. A favorite personal example:
Digital, like many large companies, had a fad of the year to encourage quality in products and processes. One year, the company set about to adopt Motorola's Six Sigma Program. Top management decided that it would show its commitment through "waterfall" training, where each level of management would train the level below it (and Digital had a lot of management levels!). Unfortunately, besides the philosophy of Six Sigma, there was technical content based on statistical analysis that management was not competent to teach.
Eventually the training cascaded down to the management in our group. Our group manager then showed his commitment by stumbling through the materials while admitting that he had first looked at them the night before while watching a Celtics basketball game.
Of course, the worst example of bad leadership at Digital was the CEO, Bob Palmer, taking a 20% salary increase (from $750k to $900k) while the employees were suffering layoffs, hiring and salary freezes. I sometimes wonder what an energizing effect he could have had on the entire company by turning down the increase, certainly more than any number of talks and presentations to the employees.
Hear, but don't listen
Also known as "in one ear, out the other". One may get a good hearing, even a sympathetic one, to legitimate concerns that one has; it sounds as if there will be changes, but nothing happens. After a few such attempts, the employee and others will generally stop seeking even a hearing. And then management wonders why it's losing touch with its people.
The manager as the Expert in Everything
Not really surprising since so many managers are promoted because of their technical skills, which are so much more comfortable to them than unfamiliar managerial skills. Unfortunately, rather than operating from a broad technical overview, this manager will still revel in the technical details, rather than leaving them to the competent engineer.
Daring to step away from technical details so as to let their engineers take responsibility and credit as experts is one of the biggest barriers to good engineering management, and one that too few surmount.
It's been my observation that many of the brightest managers leave their engineers the least space for growing into experts. After all, they have the experience and the answers, so they don't need to ask or to listen. On the other hand, I've had managers who were not as strong trust and rely on my technical expertise.
Pigeonhole
You've been hired to do a certain job; no matter what other skills or expertise you have, they're not going to be paid attention to.
I'd been hired as an optics engineer in a group developing a product to do vision inspection of assembled circuit boards. Almost twenty years of machine vision experience, a couple of years in process development in circuit board assembly don't matter - I'm an optics engineer.
The engineering manager leads a meeting at which he extols the group's machine vision experience - with a very short list in which he names only his favorite expert-in-everything engineer; apparently I'm only the optics engineer.
I had calmly told the group leader several times that I prefer to consider myself to be a machine vision engineer doing optics, and that I work better not being pigeonholed (see above: Hear, but don't listen). But I'm still introduced to others as the optics engineer. My assembly process experience gets ignored as well because I'm the optics engineer.
The group knows precious little about calibration, the basis of any kind of precision measurement. I volunteer to modify a calibration program of mine for the equipment being developed, but am told not to do software development, presumably because I'm the optics engineer. But I do the modification anyway, on my own time, and that becomes the basis of calibration for the equipment being developed. At least I know that my judgment was good.
You don't have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows
Generally a phenomenon of large companies, where it's important to sense the political climate. Unfortunately, it often leads to what I called "weathervanes", managers on whom one could not rely for support, because the political winds from above might change.
At Digital, the "weathervane" effect meant endless searches for "buy-in". Since one generally had difficulty getting support for an idea, one had to seek out and lobby presumed company experts and decision-makers at ever-higher levels. If this sounds inefficient and wasteful to you, then you're right.
Consistently underestimate the time and effort needed to get a job done
It's so easy to promise the customer, who may be internal or external to the company, that a new product, application or equipment can be delivered on schedule when any rational analysis will say that it will take twice as long. But it's a great way to demoralize those who actually do the work, and in the end, the project will take as long as it needs to anyway.
At Automatix, we had a lot of "2-week" applications that turned into two months. But there was also the 2-month application that turned into two years.
Occasionally, mis-estimates can turn to one's benefit: When I, as one of the only three full-time engineers, gave notice at a machine vision integrator, the president turned to a friend of his to take on the vision business. This friend had his own integration business in Florida. He agreed to come up to Massachusetts and on a half-time basis (1) manage a big vision-guided robotic assembly project, (2) finish and install a custom vision application, (3) develop and install another custom vision application, and (4) generate new business. Basically all this work really required two qualified full-time engineers, so I saw an opportunity for a lot of self-contract work; sure enough, it meant a couple of months of full-time contracting until another job came along. My first task was to straighten out the unfinished vision application, which didn't function because the camera had been mounted 90 degrees from how it should have been.
Lead, follow, or get out of the way
A well-known management dictum, usually used to encourage management to lead. But a really good manager also knows when to follow - he has the self-confidence to let someone else take the lead at times. In contrast, a poor manager's fragile ego will not allow anyone else to be out front. And certainly a poor manager will need oversee, supervise and approve every little detail - in short, will not get out of the way.
Have others do your dirty work
When I was hired into Digital, it was, as I found out later, at a higher level than it really should have been. Over time the picture emerged: the group manager was in a continual battle with one of his managers, one at the same level as I was hired into. Both of them bent the rules, each in their own way, and heartily disliked each other. The group manager's ploy was first to put his nemesis under my management, and then to have me write his annual review - this just a few months after I started. The group manager gave me a skeleton review to start with, one which outlined all the perceived performance problems, to which the recipient vociferously objected.
My approach was basically to hold to a middle course: tone down some of the stronger accusations, and hold some conversations with the reviewee. It was all very uncomfortable, but the review got done, the reviewee wrote a rebuttal for his file, and I managed to keep a distance from all the principals.
Cultivate short-term and selective memory
This includes promises and good intentions which just don't get carried out. Often, if something isn't done immediately, then it's just not going to happen; it's literally "now" or "never".
I've also found that all too often, management's good intentions are taken as sufficient; the intent to act counts as the act itself, something I've taken to call the "Mikado Effect":
In Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado, an official explains to the Mikado why one of his directives was not carried out:
'It's like this: When your majesty says, "Let a thing be done," it's as good as done - practically it is done - because your Majesty's will is law. Your majesty says, "Kill a gentleman," and a gentleman is told off to be killed. Consequently, that gentleman is as good as dead - practically, he is dead - and if he is dead, why not say so?'
It's absolutely amazing how often I've seen this happen during my career.
When the situation calls for it, don't show compassion or courage.
There will be times when a manager has to handle a difficult situation and deliver bad news, such as downsizing, denial of promotion, or evaluating poor performance. None of these are pleasant, but how they're provide a true measure of the man.
It was one Tuesday afternoon during the years of decline at Digital that my manager dropped in to say that he'd been told that his services would no longer be needed. I figured that it would be my turn on Wednesday and, sure enough, he came by that morning to give me the news. One of the engineers in my group was to be downsized as well, so I volunteered to tell him.
That day, and for many days afterward, my manager's manager, the one who had made the decisions, is nowhere to be seen. He's not there to give the bad news to the people to be let go, and he's not there to give the good news to the people that will stay. The latter are understandably nervous because no news is certainly not good news; at least we downsizees know our fate.
Morale drops in the group and gallows humor proliferates: "you're fired, pass it on", and we talk of manager sightings (like Elvis).
Why do I judge this manager so severely? Over the declining years of Digital, I'd had to give the bad news several times to engineers in my little group, including one that had previously had a heart attack, but realized that it was part of the job, as a professional, however difficult it might be. This decision-making manager, two levels higher, was unable to act professionally, and so earned our scorn. Let me also say that it's a lot easier to receive this bad news than to have to give it.
That's a lot of examples of poor management, so here's a final phrase: "Non illegitimi carborundum", pseudo-Latin standing for "don't let the bastards wear you down". Funny but to the point, and surprisingly good advice.
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