By Peter Cochrane, 20 August 2007 09:00
COMMENT
Written at the Membury Service Station on the M4 Motorway whilst transiting from Cardiff to Woodbridge. Dispatched to silicon.com via public wi-fi.
In the middle of a legal trial involving technology, a high court judge declares he doesn't know what a website is. In a boardroom a CEO reveals that a secretary prints out his email for him. In a meeting a senior manager responsible for IT in a multinational company admits he has no real knowledge or understanding of software or systems - and yet has the signing authority for millions of dollars of spend per year.
These days people who have zip technical training or experience are managing some of the biggest IT projects on the planet.
What is happening and how do such people survive?
I think we are witnessing the result of the rise of the professional manager - someone who would see and approach the management of a high-tech company with the same enthusiasm and ability they would bring to the management of a hotel!
Almost everywhere I go there is a common blight expressed by people relating to the state of modern management. Most simply stated it goes like this: 20 to 30 years ago people would go to their manager for advice, help and knowledge. Most managers had done the job, had worked their way up and understood the operations, technology and customer. Today this is no longer generally true. Most managers seem to come in from the side with a broad range of (irrelevant?) skills and little ability to add real value.
A net result is the rising tide of 30- to 40-year-old staffers who have one major ambition: to leave the big company and start their own. The exception seems to be the big companies born of the high-tech start-ups over the past 10 to 20 years. This is a different world! Managers have to understand both business and technology or they add no value and ultimately don't survive.
I now meet youngsters entering university with the ambition of becoming 'a manager' when they graduate. Ouch! How can they ever be good managers of anything? I don't believe they can without leaving a trail of damage behind them. Being a successful manager requires a lot of understanding, experience and skill beyond the classroom.
Unfortunately this is all compounded by the automation of many management processes that further isolate people from reality. For example, all banking decisions now seem to have been delegated to machines with human knowledge of the local situation reduced to a few limited keystrokes. Efficient and cheap? Oh yes! Fully effective? Not very often!
The net result for many employees and customers is unnecessary work pressure, undue tension and a general lack of satisfaction all round.
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So is there a solution on the horizon? Perhaps! Keep an eye on the progressive virtualisation of companies and the resulting reduction in the number of managers. Also watch the development of business modelling, decision support and knowledge management. But, most of all, watch the tech skilled youngsters entering the workplace who come with new mindsets and modes of operation.
I think we are about to see some radical changes in the workplace that will see the gradual displacement of those unable to contribute real value add. But it will most likely take more than 10 to 20 years to see their total displacement as companies slowly figure out that employing someone without tech skills is about as sensible as recruiting people who are illiterate and innumerate.
Comments
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1. anonymous
That was very observant of you Peter. I work with a great deal of senior managers who do not have a clue about what I do and are only interested if I have spare capacity to do more of it and are not interested in helping solve any problems I have unless it includes shouting and stressing how very important the scope creep is. I certainly seem to have hit a glass celing as far as further promotion goes and am now looking to move outside including working for myself and I am not the only one.
This does mean that big companies will be staffed by managers that don't understand what actually needs doing and junior staff who cannot do it for them anyway. It is not looking good for UK business is it.
I don't think that there really will be a drop in managers - it would be a bit like MP's voting themselces a below inflation pay rise - just ain't gonna happen.
2. Jim Price
Peter, you and I came up through the ranks of industry, you with a telecoms network operator and me with an equipment vendor. Only when we had demonstrated that we had the capability were we promoted and eventually became 'managers' - the word meant something in those days! We were by then capable of a good understanding what out proteges did, and in most cases doing it, but at the very least we were able to understand the problems. We could and did add to the thought processes that resolved both the day to day and longer term issues, we made independent decisions (perhaps not always right!) and were true part of OUR teams.
Today's number crunching managers simply do not have a clue in times of crisis, times when you or I and many more of our age group would have rolled up our sleeves and mucked-in. Even better, we enjoyed getting the job done!
3. anonymous
Well said Peter. Couldn't agree more.
By the way, did you mean "innumerate" ... or were you being ironic? :-)
4. Ian Osborne
Bravo Peter! I frequently find my similar fears, that today's IT Directors are too obsessed with promotion to the Board and yet don't understand their own business, are shared with a wide cross-section of the industry. This is a recipe for an added vacuum, not value! No wonder that businesses are looking to place their own high flyers in charge of IT - at least one of the bases is covered! The lessons of the hybrid manager from decades ago remain. In IT we must understand our own contribution and the context in which we contribute.
5. Jim Price
If I can be permitted a two more brief comments, I talked about Peter's blog to an ex-colleague this afternoon. He summed it up, saying that proper managers worked with people and together they (we) got the job done. Today's managers control resources who undertake tasks.
This evening I spent 40 minutes on the phone to the 'contact centre' of my former energy supplier, the agent didn't want to help, the Team Leader wouldn't help the Shift Manager couldn't help and after a great deal of a**e padding en route, the "Shift Operations Director" agreed to refund the £15 they owed me! How much did that cost them? This is the new target-driven management at work!
6. Peter Cochrane
Anonymous London
Time will tell - but I would hunt out a good team and make a move asap. You don't have to suffer!
Peter
7. Peter Cochrane
Jim = I have always taken the view that being a manager automatically meant being a leader. And I for and with some super managers and leaders in my life. But there were some exceptions! Today it seems that the exceptions may be becomming the rule! -Peter
8. Peter Cochrane
Anonymous Aberdeen
I always wanted to be an ingineer and now I are one!
Looks like an ironic typo??? I ask the editor to fix.
Thanks, Peter
9. Peter Cochrane
Ian = We are on the same page! When people stop trying to understand they become dangerous. Peter
10. Richard Sarson
Know-nothing-managers are not a new phenomenon. 'Twas ever thus. I have been in this industry for 54 years, and in that time have had only 5 managers who knew what they were doing and had enough charisma to inspire me to perform. Two of them were women, one half my age.
The rest were macho numb-skulls with good teeth, a head for numbers, a loud mouth and an overwhelming desire to move on to the next job. I am cheered to find that they burnt out or were found out before they hit 55. They are no longer with us. Sadly, they seem to be replaced with people just like them.
11. Simon
Well said that man !
But ... whilst my last employer was (in the end) run by people rather like that, it wasn't always so. Step back ten years when it was still a privately owned/run business and my managers were completely non-technical - they knew people, they knew marketing, they had an innate sense of "what's right" (ie what had style and what was 'bling'), and they knew candles (the business). But they also knew how to delegate and support people who did know !
My director was one of the nicest people you could want to work with. She could be savage when required, but you always knew where you stood. She never showed any of this modern pretence at knowing what you don't - but she was prepared to take advice and for what was on paper a junior position I had a lot of influence.
No bull**it - just this is what I want to do, this is why I think we should do it, and this is what it'll cost. Occasionally a bit of discussion, but otherwise a simple yes/no/can we hold off until next budget year.
And if you didn't get it right first time - well how do we fix it. You knew you'd cocked-up, there were no recriminations, you just got on an fixed it.
The end came when I was off work with stress, and my then FD said "I've asked around and as far as I can tell you don't do anything" - he said that straight to my face and with no hint or irony. He genuinely had so little grasp of how the business ran that he couldn't connect "computers 'just work'" with "IT does something" ! When he said that, that was the moment I realised that I couldn't go back to work there.
I doubt if my story is unique, or even uncommon - sadly. Even my immediate manager (who I didn't always get on with) couldn't believe it.
12. Andrew Robb
In this topsy-turvy world, I sense that contractors form the stable backbone of many an IT project for years, followed by 'full-time' workers who come and go in a few months. The most ephemeral team members are managers, who might only last weeks!
13. Sean
Blame Drucker et al
With Management by Objectives, Drucker showed how to churn out nominally effective supervisors.
Directors hire consultants (who rarely have any real experience) to formulate strategy they are unable to generate themselves or for which they want a fall guy when it goes wrong.
The best consultants are your own staff, who nutured will add the value you need.
But as you say Peter it will take a decade or two before some altruistic consultant spreads the gospel.
14. Tony
Peter, I am in full agreement with your comments, I have been in the industry for over 40 years and it took me numerous years to attain the position of Technical Director for a central governement organisation. I held this positiion for only 15 months before being made redundant due to the incompentancy of a very high government official, who did not have the faintest idea about IT (Broadband in particular). I pride myself in having come through the "ranks" and took the time to study all aspects of the work I was involved in and drawing on many years experience. Due to my age I found it difficult to find suitable employment in the UK due to my age (sorry being over qualified). I am now working in Saudi Arabia as a Contractor, where my skills, knowledge and experience are fully appreciated and my age is not an issue. My employer is pleased that the UK is neglecting the real managers in preference to the "numb skulls" currently being employed, as he can recruit personnel who are an instant asset to his company. I currently work for the largest oil company in Saudi Arabia and enjoy passing on my skills to the younger generation over here, pity I cannot do the same for my own country.
15. anonymous
Blame the economics of IT. Increasing customer demands and shrinking budgets. Increasing manager-to-doer ratios to keep costs down.
Managers spending 8 hours a day pushing the numbers to prove things are on budget. Another 2-4 hrs a day trying to manage the technical team and help with problems. If they want to get home to their spouses and kids at a semi-decent time there is no time to keep up with the accelerating developments in the industry. They are judged and rewarded on delivering on time and to budget so why is anyone surprised that that is where their focus is?
16. John Griffiths
Couldn't agree more. I'm in your category of people leaving a big telco company - not to start my own initially but to work with a bunch of people who all know what they are doing and don't crave a fancy job title in a subject the know nothing about.
It is sad but I think its a situation common to many other sectors eg armed services, police, education and health to name a few. Professional management skills are no substitute for the basic and advanced skills of the trade.
17. Simon Allen
Spot on, Peter - as usual!!
I saw this start in the 1980s. One of the culprits was Thatcher who promoted the idea that a good manager can manage anything. She brought commercial people into govt and academic subjects and we never got to hear what happened next. Unless we were told that it is was all a great success ...!!
In the 80s and 90s, companies cleared out the 'old' (aged 45 upwards) and used younger (cheaper) folks to be 'managers'. This failed the company in all sorts of ways that many of us stated but is now apparent.
Friends of mine who left to start their own small specialist company in telecomms software(!) tell me that they meet people who are specifying and buying with zero idea of what they are doing and being paid a lot of money to do it.
Sadly, for the SMC, they usually buy from the big boys because they feel safer. Of course, the big boys in IT are suffering from the same problem and it is the SMCs that have the good staff that can fix things!!
But this is the truly serious bit, this is by no means unique to IT. Friends of mine who work in a multiplicity of other environments (music & entertainments, aviation etc.) all say the same about THEIR respect line of work.
The most excruciating example of this is politics. After Thatcher, Blair and his pals decided to run the whole country like that. The paucity of target driven work we see around us every day.
18. Simon Jones
I think the 'pointy haired boss' in the Dilbert comic strips is a very good observation on the state of todays senior managers
19. Nick Cole
Hear - Hear!!!!
And all these managers spend most of their time protecting their status and position. Revelling in their authority over those who have more knowledge, skills and expertise than they will ever have.
Decisions made because the manager wants it rather than being best or appropriate. And this also runs into the political field and outwith technology companies.
20. Dave Yearsley
Hi,
Ideally a manager should have broad view of organisation, able to grasp detail, contribute to discussion, be a mentor and not abuse their role with selfish objectives nor be protective of knowledge.
A hands-on manager can be a major constraint if their sense of practicality is limited, old fashioned, not dynamic or forward thinking.
A risk is that managers can assume they are special and think they can make clever judgements. In reality they should be co-ordinators and mostly should get less salary than the people they work with. The challenge to managers is that most of their work can be replaced by workflow systems and most are too selfish to entertain collaborative systems of work.
Perhaps if managers were on short secondments where they had to prove their worth to the business (and work teams) – organisations would become more flexible and managers more capable.
21. anonymous
I have a checkered work history and it seems to have resembled a nice sine wave alternating between work and employment.
On leaving School at 16 I chose to do a 2 year full time C&G Electronics Servicing course. I passed the apprentice's exam with the City's largest employer but they couldn't tell me in what trade.
Quarter of a century later with an MSc in Network Engineering, a CCDP and just one more cert. to a CCNP I was dsimayed that the FE college where I did my C&G and HNC has been rebranded and has new CEO, that just happens to female.
Her justification for a whole new college campus, with all the environmental and cost grounds?
"The existing building hasn't been designed around wireless networks"
It reminds me of the telephone sanitisers and hair dressers sent off to that other planet in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
:( My Council Tax pays her wages.
So if I get a job involved with Cisco WLANs I'll be rubbing my chin a lot, with deep intakes of breath through clenched teeth and uttering "It'll cost you. This building hasn't been designed around wireless networks luv"
I assume that my the Built Environment dept. of my local ex-Poly has a module on designing buildings around WLANs then?
22. AJI
Many years ago, Harvard Business School ran a project to prove that managers trained by them were far superior to the rest. They tracked back all their old students and examined the profits made by the companies they were now running.
Guess what?
The results showed that, at best, they were mediocre. Mostly, they were much worse.
23. Jeremy Wickins
It isn't just IT, Peter. I used to be a nurse, and saw it happen in the NHS - generic "managers" with no concept of delivering health care taking over, with there own set of (purely financial) ideas of efficiency. I am now in academia, and the same is happening. There seems to be no conception in the breeding room for these morons that "efficiency" is more than the accounts spreadsheet. To papraphrase Oscar Wilde (or was it Bernard Shaw?), "Those who can, do: those who can't, manage (and manage to stop the doers doing!).
24. anonymous
Management is no longer a job description; it has become a class status (airlines have simply renamed their top service from "first class" to "business class"). What separates managers from other classes is the MBA school.
It is there they are told that using the tools MBA schools give them, they can manage any kind of business, be it making soup or Wi-Fi hardware.
And, as it was hundreds of years ago, you can't tell them they don't know anything about what they're managing. They are to the manor born, and have understood unquestioningly that have a divine right to manage.
Therefore, even suggesting they should know anything about their product is beside the point, and only proves how wrong-headed you are in even raising the issue.
25. paul
Well said Peter, it is time this glass ceiling was shattered!
Where i work i waste too much time having to explain something technical to my managers, by comparing it to a trip to a supermarket (or some other lame and irrelevant comarison) in an effort to get them to understand a complex problem.
Oh, and using baked beans to explain a national network....umm say no more!
26. Peter Cochrane
Richard = My experience wasn't so extreme....but what you describe seems to be becoming the norm. Peter
27. Peter Cochrane
Simon = Have I seen this in industry or what! If only your immediate manager had had the guts to defend you. BUT leaving and moving on was exactly the right decision. Peter
28. Peter Cochrane
Simon = I sometimes think it is worldwide ! Peter
29. Peter Cochrane
Tony in Saudi
Yours is a very common solution to the problem, and in the gobal sense it works well. Peter
30. Peter Cochrane
Sean = I think what Peter Drucker advocated isn't exactly what we have got...but I agree...some of it is simple minded when you take into account the realities of manageing a team in a modern business. My perception is that a higher degree of stability is assumed than is generally experienced! Peter
31. Peter Cochrane
Dave = Here are three management maxims developed from my experience:
1) Always recruit people smarter than you ...
2) Never recruit people in your image
3) Start looking for and training your replacement as soon as you start the job
Peter
32. Peter Cochrane
Jeremy = I was trying to infer that it was pretty much a generic problem...and I think we can safely assume, unfortunately, that the UK NHS are the champions in this league table. Peter
33. Peter Cochrane
Anonymous Toronto = I always thought that having Administration in the title of any degree was a bit infortunate! Peter
34. Neil T
While I agree to the sentiment in general, Peter, I don't think the political aspects should be underestimated. I know technologically proficient managers who are woefully naive about the business of running a business.