Startup Myths and Models by Rizwan Virk

Author:Rizwan Virk
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BUS025000, Business & Economics/Entrepreneurship, BUS019000, Business & Economics/Decision-Making & Problem Solving
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2020-06-02T00:00:00+00:00

Management Isn’t Really Work, Is it?

Just as with micromanaging, there is an underlying belief system that usually drives absent managers—and that is that management itself is not “real” work. Engineers in particular tend to be absent managers, because they are at heart “doers” who do not see the real value in managing (often incorrectly, as I was forced to admit to myself).

There’s an unspoken belief, particularly within the tech world (though I assume there is something similar in other realms) that managers suck. Okay, maybe it’s not so unspoken, but as an engineer, I have felt that way myself. It was a pretty common view among my peers at MIT. Cartoons like Dilbert and shows like The Office promote and reinforce this idea.

The problem with managers, the thinking goes, is that they end up taking all the credit for the work, which is really done by the doers (in this case the engineers). Meanwhile, every time they check in with you, they are taking valuable time away from your getting work done. If they would just stay away, that would be so much better for the engineer, the manager, and the company!

Do you suffer or subscribe to this point of view? I certainly did. As a result, among engineers, there’s this second “unspoken” belief that “when I become a manager, I’m going to do a better job than my managers did with me! I’m going to give the engineers a lot of freedom to get their work done without bothering them all the time.”

Then, when an engineer becomes a manager, the tendency is to give engineers a wide berth—and that can lead to absenteeism.

This can be as problematic as becoming a micromanager. Contrary to what my former engineering colleagues think, management is real work, and it takes a certain amount of time to be done right. Managers not only need to understand what their direct reports are doing, they need to plan for risks and contingencies, and they need to see how that fits into the overall objective they are trying to achieve for the company.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.